


Clow Stories

by butterflydreaming (chrysalisdreams)



Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, One True Pairing, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Build, Switching, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 00:04:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 43,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalisdreams/pseuds/butterflydreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yue loved Clow for a long time before Clow saw what was before him. But Yue was innocent in ways that Clow was not. To balance an imbalanced relationship, Maker and Creation would both have to learn lessons of love.</p><p>[Yuuko Ichihara version, minus OCs. Polished up & rewritten from my original version. Pre-canon.]</p><p>Complete!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Time & Memory, End & Begin

**Author's Note:**

> No explicit sex until "Closer Yet".

Yue lay awake, listening to the weather change. Rain drummed against the roof tiles of his house. When a gust of wind billowed through the storm, the percussion abated for a breath. When the rain fell again, the sound was like the storm's exhalation. Yue imagined that he could hear the icy drops changing their nature, become light as they turned into the confetti of snowflakes. He felt Yukito's mind stirring.

 

_Happy Birthday,_ Yue said, when he recognized that his other self had woken up.

 

_Is it past midnight? Merry Christmas!_ Yukito answered with sleepy delight.

 

_Yes. Christmas morning, but still early. Go back to sleep._ Yukito's presence slipped into the background again.

 

Like a gift to himself, Yue unwrapped his memories and took them out of their boxes each at a time. Each of them was like a story. Yue, and Clow Reed. He listened to the changing storm and remembered.

# 

# 

#  **Ch 1: End & Begin**

_If I pour your cup, that is friendship. If I add your milk, that is manners. If I stop there, claiming ignorance of taste, that is tea. But if I measure the sugar..._ “Cold Tea Blues” by Cowboy Junkies

 

(America; San Francisco; the late 19th century)

 

            Yue and Cerberus had the house packed when Clow returned home.  Yue had already paid and dismissed the servants and arranged for the sale of the remaining furnishings.  He was still wearing the glamour that gave him short hair and tinted his eyes hazel when Clow walked through the door. The sorcerer paused to admire his handiwork.  Yue could cast this spell himself.  Unlike Cerberus, who had to hide in a smaller, “false” form, Yue could take the appearance of an ordinary man -- a man extremely pleasant to look upon, certainly, but still seemingly human.  He was wonderfully self-sufficient and yet completely loyal to his Master. 

 

            Yue’s attention to him was immediate when he walked through the door.  He stepped up to his Master and took Clow’s coat.  “Clow--” he started, a frown creasing his brow.

 

            “What happened to you?” asked Cerberus bluntly, padding out from the parlor room.  “Your face is all scratched.”

 

            “Thorns,” Clow said by way of explanation. Rose’s anger still mystified him.  She was passionate; it was one of the things he had liked about her, but he never expected her fury over parting ways.  He hadn’t seen the point in telling her sooner.  It would just have made their last days together strange and sad.

 

            He hated making women cry, which was the reason that he had waited until today to say goodbye.  But she had cried anyway.

 

            “Maybe you should stay out of the bramble,” advised Cerberus with false nonchalance.

 

            Yue turned away to hang the coat in a closet, and the magician walked with Cerberus into the sitting room.  All the furnishings were now covered with dust-covers; Clow sank into an armchair without removing the cloth.  “It seems that you have everything in order,” he said contentedly to Yue when Yue joined them.

 

            “Everything that we are taking has been sent to the ship.  We can follow this evening,” Yue informed him.  Yue went to the sideboard to pour a tumbler of scotch for the sorcerer.

 

            “No thank you, Yue,” Clow said, stopping him.  “Just some black tea.”

 

            “The kettle is already heating,” Yue said.  He walked over to stand in front of his Master, then leaned in to inspect the facial cuts.  Yue put a fingertip against a scratch and gently traced it, healing it as his finger passed.  “I hope she was worth it,” he murmured quietly when he finally lifted his touch completely, and then he walked out of the room.

 

            Clow looked over to Cerberus questioningly.  “He takes care of all the finances,” the lion stated.  “Of course he suspects.”

 

            “I wasn’t hiding it,” Clow said defensively.

 

            “Yes you were.  Just this time, you didn’t do as good a job,” argued Cerberus.

 

            “Should I say something?”

 

            “It wouldn’t do any good,” answered Cerberus.  “If he’s mad, he’ll get over it.  If you want to buy someone a house, that’s your choice.  As far as I can tell, we can spare it.”

 

            “I couldn’t leave her without anything.”

 

            “Don’t tell me about it.”  Cerberus made himself comfortable, draped across the covered couch.  “So what do we do until it’s time to leave?”

 

            “Whatever you like.  This may be our last time in America, possibly our last time in the Western Hemisphere.  Once we arrive in Japan, I think I’m done with travel.”  He put his feet -- still in their boots -- up onto the low table.  “I want to settle in with my garden and my books and go nowhere, and do absolutely nothing.”

 

            Cerberus laughed.  “You’re getting old, Clow.”

 

            “The centuries do wear,” laughed the magician in reply.  “It’s a beautiful estate from its description.  Acres of open land and low hills.  Natural springs, plenty of trees.  A forest of bamboo.  We’ll be nearly alone, just the three of us, but only a half-day’s ride from the city of Tokyo.”  He stretched and exhaled contentedly.  “I’m not looking forward to the sea voyage, though,” he added.

 

            “We could have traveled another way,” said Cerberus.

 

            “No,” said Clow, “waste of magic." He knew a witch who could make such a journey with little effort, but for Clow, the dimensional tunnel that accessed other worlds was too dangerous for something as commonplace as a change of address.  "And I only plan to do this once, so how could I miss the opportunity?”

 

            “Well, I won’t be sorry to miss it.  Just make sure to wake me up when we get to Yokohama.”

 

            “The Atlantic crossing was rough,” Clow reminisced unhappily.  “All that rolling water… .”

 

            “And don’t forget to give me the language at some point.  And find someone who knows some really good slang.  I’m getting tired of Yue’s little comments and not knowing what he’s saying.”

 

            Yue re-entered the room at Cerberus’ words; he carried a covered teapot, creamer and sugar bowl, and three cups on a maplewood tray.  With his glamour dispersed his long hair now spilled between his full wings.  It was a peculiar combination with his morning coat, vest, polished boots, and trousers.  “You could have studied with me, Cerberus.  I did offer,” he said mildly.  He set the tray down on the table near Clow’s boots without comment, but the sorcerer could see Yue’s restraint.

 

            Cerberus grunted.  “You may like the torture of learning languages the hard way,” he countered, “but you are definitely in the minority on that.”  He exchanged a knowing look with his maker.

 

            Yue hitched the legs of his trousers as he sat down next to Clow.  “Patience is a virtue,” he quoted with a smirk and started to serve the tea.  “All things come to those who wait.”  Cerberus scoffed, but his sibling was unbothered by it.  He simply set a full cup of tea in front of Cerberus, tea already heavily sweetened with sugar and quantities of cream.  It was a ratio of less than half Assam black tea, actually.  He handed a cup to Clow as well.

 

            Clow tipped the cup back to drink, but made a face and set it back down on the saucer.  “You never add my sugar, Yue,” he said with a note of exasperation. He sat up straighter, removing his booted feet from the table.  “Cream, always.  Sugar, never.”  Cerberus laughed as he lapped his own.  “You can’t claim ignorance; you’ve watched me drink tea your whole life.”

 

            “You might change your tastes,” Yue said elusively.

 

            Reed shook his head, giving up, and measured sugar into his teacup.  “Three spoonfuls,” he said instructively.

 

“I know,” Yue said.  “Do you know how I take mine?”

 

            Cerberus snickered.  “ _Touché_ ,” he mumbled.

 

            Clow smile wryly, not wanting to admit his lack of an answer.  “But you always take care of everything,” the magician attempted appeasement.  “I’d be lost without you.”

 

            Yue made no reply to that.  He alternated between drinking his tea and staring into the cup.

 

            Cerberus came to Clow’s rescue.  “Yue, we were trying to decide what to do with the rest of today.”

 

            Yue mulled over possibilities.  “Is there anyone we should bid goodbye to?  Mr. Sutro has been very generous to me with his book collection, but I have already sent him the notice of our departure with my thanks.”

 

            “I think we’ve all tied up our loose ends,” said Cerberus with heavy implication toward Clow. The winged lion was glad to be leaving another of his Master's love affairs behind them. Clow would try their patience for the next few days, but he would be back to being fun again in a week or so.

 

            “I think that I would like to walk the park for one last time,” Yue said softly, considering, “and perhaps visit Chinatown… and we never have explored the Latin Quarter…”.

 

            “Not the Latin Quarter,” said Clow, too quickly. The Spanish neighborhood was where he had spent his morning. Yue measured him with a slow glance, but Clow just smiled again without answering.

 

            “The park will be fun,” interjected Cerberus.  “I won’t have to spend all my time in a satchel.”  He licked the last syrupy dregs from his teacup with a wide tongue.  Without needing to be asked, Yue refilled it: sugar, then cream, then tea.

 

            “Can you stand one last excursion in that familiar piece of luggage?” Clow asked his feline creation with amusement.  “If you can, I propose that we all go out for dinner this evening, after I investigate our accommodations on the _China._   I know how well you sleep after a good meal, Cerberus.”

 

            “Will we visit Madam Chen?” asked Yue.  “Dinner at the Empress Pavilion?”

 

            Clow’s manner was contemplative.  “Today is possibly the last time we will be in America.  I think that I would like to eat an American-style dinner.”

 

            Cerberus and Yue exchanged looks.  It was just like their Master to choose something that they had never done while in San Francisco.  “Do you have a place in mind?” asked Yue with interest.

 

            “Carter’s appeals to me,” the magician said lightly.  He was referring to a new and very upscale restaurant in the downtown corridor.

 

            In Philadelphia and in Chicago, they had dined in similar places.  That style of restaurant conveniently featured curtain-covered, private booths, so Cerberus could enjoy the meal openly.  In San Francisco, however, the trio had restricted themselves to places frequented by the magic community, such as their favorite haunt in Chinatown.  Madam Chen as she was called was from a family of sorcerers, although her abilities were limited to the overseeing of her cooks.  Though Cerberus was still a marvel to her, she and her customers were no strangers to magic.

 

            Carter’s promised to be an adventure; they agreed on the location for their parting meal.

 

* * *

 

            Everything was in order on the sea vessel.  Clow checked the storage of their possessions in the ship’s hold and surveyed his accommodations for the journey, while Yue waited on the dock with Cerberus hidden in his false form.  The magician did not take long to return to his companions.  They then took a hack to the edge of Golden Gate Park and wandered on foot through its acreage until twilight began to descend.  They made their way to the western end, where the park opened out to the shore, and watched the sun set while sitting on the cold beach sand.

 

            Because of the new country club conveniently nearby, it was easy to flag down a carriage that would take them back to Mission Street, even at the late time of day.  It had been pleasant to sit in the darkness of the shore, with Glow making a reserved light for them, and listen to the ocean’s waves.  The Pacific was vast and black after sunset, seeming more immense and thrilling than by daylight.

 

            The city’s streets were nearly empty; at this time of night, most of the citizens were secured in their homes.  A small crowd loitered outside a theatre, having an intermission from the play being performed within.  The hotel to which Carter’s belonged had an idle doorman waiting for the arrival or return  of late guests.  He appeared thankful to have something to do when Clow, Cerberus’ transport bag in hand, and Yue stepped out of the carriage.  As always when outside of the privacy of their house, Yue was ensorcelled in glamour.  The sentry held the heavy glass door for the two gentlemen and welcomed them into the hotel’s foyer.

 

            From the foyer, the restaurant was a half-story lower.  The companions paused at the top of the broad, semi-circular stairs that joined the levels and looked down into the luxurious room.  Round tables dotted the main dining floor, each of them covered in starched white linens.  The walls were painted in a royal blue. Gilded, carved screens separated the dining area from the entry.  Clow touched Yue on the elbow and directed him to follow to the host at his podium.

 

            The _maître d’hôtel_ did not look up when they approached, though Clow had seen the man’s quick assessment of them when they had first passed the doorway.  Clow watched him quietly for several minute while the man fussed with menus and otherwise kept himself too occupied to acknowledge them.  At last the man looked up and regarded Clow and Yue with a false smile.  He raised his eye brows, as if to say, “Yes?”.

 

            Clow smiled in return, an easy smile.  There was no need for him to speak first.  He watched as the eyes of the _maître d’_ flickered over his face.  The sorcerer could not see Yue, who was standing a step behind him and to the side, but he could feel his companion’s tension.

 

            “I’m afraid that all our tables are taken,” said the _maître d’_ eventually.  His manner was falsely obsequious, and his voice dripped with an ironic tint.  Allowing another moment to pass, he added, “…gentlemen.”

 

            It was Clow’s turn to lift an eyebrow.  He looked pointedly beyond the restaurant employee at the open dining area; because of the late hour, few tables had occupants.  The _maître d’,_ well aware of the expressive look, remained unaffected.  Clow refused to take offense.  “Very well, then,” said Clow mildly.  “We will go elsewhere.”  He paused for only a moment longer, and then began to walk toward the exit.

 

            Yue stopped his Master as he passed, with a touch on Clow’s arm.  Clow was about to coax Yue away, to quietly tell him to ignore the slight, but Yue’s eyes were both questioning and angry.  Clow said nothing to his companion.  Dropping his hand away from his Master’s arm, Yue walked away from Clow and toward the podium.

 

            The _maître d’_ had returned to his tactic of ignoring them, but Yue cut through it with a voice like sharp steel.  “Is there a problem?” he asked, very quietly.

 

            With a superior lift of his nose, the _maître d’_ answered, “I believe that I told you that we are out of tables.”

 

            Yue took a closer step, moving unsociably close to the man, although Yue’s stance was relaxed and calm.  “I believe that you will wish to re-assess that,” Yue suggested.  Although his tone was reasoning, the warning could not be missed.

 

            The restaurant employee stepped away from his podium, and in a supercilious voice announced, “I am so sorry.  But our kitchen has closed for the evening.”

 

Yue’s eyes narrowed and glinted with a blue like arctic ice.  Yue felt a certain satisfaction when the man tried to cow him by meeting his eyes and then instead took a step back at what he saw there.  When the _maître d’_ spoke again, his voice contained a slight tremble. 

 

“How… ever…” the man started, “ I… believe that we can fit you in,” he amended.  The shaken man selected two menus, and began to lead Yue and Clow into the nearly empty dining room.

 

            He started to direct them to an out-of-the-way table, but Yue stopped him.  “A private booth, please,” Yue indicated with sharp politeness.  The host was quick to respond, leading the pair on to one of the curtained alcoves along the wall.  He sat them at the table within, and handed a menu to each of them with care.  Yue glanced over the page quickly.  “Three of the main course, and one of everything else,” he ordered curtly, daring the man to question him, “except for the aspic. We don't care for meat jellies. A bottle of—” he glance at Clow, “--Claret, and we will want to see the desserts afterward.”  Yue tossed his head slightly as he handed the menu back.  “And privacy,” he added. 

 

            The _maître d’_ bowed and backed out, closing the curtains as he left.  They could hear him berating the waiter who had followed too slowly.  Yue leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs in front of him.  He crossed his arms as well as he turned his attention to Clow.

 

            “You should never allow that behavior, Master,” Yue admonished quietly.  From his expression, it was clear to the sorcerer that his companion was furious, though Yue could contain his emotions like a Wu Xing master could seal demons.

 

            Clow shook his head.  “Yue,” he said with a smile, “it wasn’t important.”

 

            Yue’s expression softened to one of concern.  “He was presuming to judge us,” he said.

 

            “No, he was being a bigot,” said Clow.  “Chinese are not universally well regarded in this territory,” he explained. It was additionally possible, Clow suspected, that the man had judged them as having an illicit companionship. Love between men was as illegal here as it was back in England. It was some comfort to Clow to know that censure would one day change to celebration.

 

            “I know,” said Yue.  His blue eyes held an expression of pain.

 

            With a sigh, Clow unclasped the satchel in which Cerberus was hiding.  “Do not be concerned for my pride, Yue,” Clow said.

 

            Yue’s answer was argumentative.  “And what of ours?” Yue asked. 

 

Cerberus fluttered up from the bag and stepped onto the table.   “What?” he asked, while he curiously inspected the small room.  He twiddled with the key on the gaslight, adjusting the light levels up and down.

 

            “His assessment was only of me,” said Clow seriously.  “I’m sure he didn’t know _what_ to make of you.”

 

            “You know that’s not what I mean,” Yue countered.  “Cerberus, you might want to hide again.  I hear a cart approaching.”

 

            There was a slight clearing of throat from the other side of the curtain, and then a waiter entered, pushing a wheeled cart.  “First course, sirs,” he said respectfully.  He transferred the covered dishes and took the silver domes away with him when he exited.  Once he was gone, Cerberus flew back out from beneath the table cloth to inspect the selection.

 

            “He means that we won’t put up with anyone acting above you, Clow,” said Cerberus distractedly, lifting the heavily loaded shell of an oyster Rockefeller.  “I think you handled it right, Yue,” he added with a full mouth.  “I would’ve waited until he left for home at closing time and then disemboweled him in the alley.”

 

            “And done so without my leave,” said Clow with shadow of reprimand.  He hoped that, in this case, Cerberus was exaggerating again. Not since his dueling days had Clow needed to keep his companion's impulses in check. They had both mellowed with time.

 

            Yue selected a long, thin crab leg and carefully removed its shell.  He placed the pieces of cleaned meat on a small plate and set the plate in front of his sibling.  They exchanged a sly look of camaraderie.  Clow missed the exchange; his thoughts swirled.  The sorcerer was touched by their chivalry toward him, but concerned at its ferocity.  Absentmindedly, the magician dipped a shelled prawn in butter and ate it without tasting it. 

 

Cerberus was enjoying the starters enough for all of the companions.  Yue had yet to eat anything himself, but unlike his sibling, who ate for his own pleasure, Yue partook of food only for Clow’s pleasure.  If the magician had been paying attention, he would have understood that Yue’s anger was at least in a small part directed toward his maker.  Clow caressed Cerberus behind the ears while the sorcerer’s small companion ate.  Yue also directed his attentions to the little creature, and Cerberus swished his tail with pleasure. 

 

            A while later, the waiter returned with more dishes on a large tray.  A second waiter followed with the wine, opened it, and poured three glasses without question.  The copious empty plates were removed without comment, but Clow was sure that there would be talk once those waiters reached the safety of the kitchen.  He glanced at Yue and caught his eye with a twinkle; Yue smiled slowly in reply.

 

* * *

 

 

 


	2. Rolling Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Aboard the China, somewhere on the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco, in the United States, and Yokohama, Japan)

# Rolling Water

 

(Aboard the _China,_ somewhere on the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco, in the United States, and Yokohama, Japan)

 

 

            Though he had one of the nicer cabins on the ship, without the lamps lighted the space within was nearly as dark as a closet. Clow removed his spectacles and blinked while his eyes tried to adjust to the darkness. The only light in the room came from the light of the moon, reflected on the black water and shining through the porthole glass.  Once he could discern shapes, he pulled the door shut behind him; the heavy, salt-weathered wood thudded softly as door met doorjamb.  He slid the brass bolt into the lock and crossed to sit on the small, firm bed.

 

            From the pocket of his heavy wool coat he removed a book, one bound in dark red leather and embellished with gold fittings and red spinel cabochons.  The small book was warm from being kept close to his chest; he had kept it close to his heart, because this book was his most dear possession. It held his companions, ensorcelled for now to sleep through this long and public crossing of the Pacific. He placed the book in the bedside cabinet that, like the bed, was bolted to the floor.  They were of the same dark walnut color, adorned with brass, as the rest of the cabin’s walls and furniture.  Furniture was sparse in the small space; besides the bed and cabinet, there was only an armoire and round parlor table with a pair of chairs.

 

            The sorcerer illuminated the darkness of the room without magic.  He used a lucifer to bring flames to the lantern wicks rather than invoking Firey because crossing over so much moving water weakened him. Despite the few precautions that he could take, his magic was uncertain, and the little fire sprite could easily get out of his control. For the same reason, he would not use Wave to calm the waters into a gentler current, not even for an hour’s peace.

 

            The passing days on the ship were taking their toll on Clow.  He had had to forgo dinner once again, and instead spent the dining hour resting against the railing of an out-of-the-way spot on deck and breathing in the heavily oxygenated salt air.  The dragons beneath the waters of  the Pacific wove far beneath the magician’s floating transport; the energies that they moved swirled unpredictably.  It was no better in his cabin, but the hour was now late, and he needed to at least attempt sleep. He poured a jigger of brandy from a flask and tossed it back, hoping that the liquor would placate his uneasy stomach.

 

            When sleep continued to evade him, he dressed again, though in the more comfortable wrap of a heavy silk kimono.  He removed the Clow book from the cabinet and rested it on the room’s table.  After only a moment’s consideration, he turned it face down. Then, with a quick invocation, he un-sealed Yue.

 

            The symbol of the winged crescent moon glowed and changed, defining itself into the form of a man.  Yue’s wings covered him at first, but as they pulled away and he became aware, he used his own magic to wrap himself in moonlight and spin it into a draping kimono that matched Clow’s garment except for color.

 

            “I’m going to guess that we have not arrived in Yokohama,” Yue said, adding together the environs and the ship’s rocking.  “How far out are we?”

 

            “Not even half-way,” Clow admitted, reducing his staff again and tucking it away. He sat down onto the rumpled bed. “I am finding it impossible to sleep. I was hoping that you could keep me company.”

 

            Yue sat beside his Master.  The moonlight white of Yue’s kimono contrasted prettily against Clow’s black silk.  The contrast of the magician’s wan face, however, worried Yue.  “You look tired,” he said, “and pale.”

 

Clow reclined back onto the covers and placed his feet placed up by the headboard so that he lay reversed on the bed.  When his head touched the mattress, he closed his eyes and exhaled with forced steadiness. “Everyone assumes that I am seasick,” he said with his eyes still closed.

 

            Yue gazed at his Master.  While Clow’s eyes remained closed, he savored the opportunity to caress the sickly face with his look.  “I am sure that you are not the only one,” Yue replied.

 

            “No, there is no dearth of fainting women on this vessel,” said Clow with an embarrassed laugh.  “But by the time we reach port, most of them will have become desensitized to the ship’s rocking. I will be the only one still green around the gills.” He sighed. “This is so much worse than coming over from England.  The water itself is smoother, but the currents are much deeper and more layered.  I feel constantly out of balance.”

 

            “I know,” said Yue gently.  “I can feel the waning and waxing of your magic.”

 

            Clow opened his eyes and looked at his companion with pained realization. “Of course,” he said.  “You must feel as sick as I do.”

 

            “Only a reflection of it,” Yue replied. “Not as much.” He removed his gaze from his Master and looked around the cabin.  His eyes fell on the Clow book.  Thinking of how the sorcerer had chosen to wake the moon rather than the lion, he smiled softly to himself.

 

            “This is why Cerberus is constantly telling me how selfish I am,” said the sorcerer apologetically.  He stared upward at the plain ceiling.  “I’m sorry for complaining. Should I seal you again?  You don’t have to go through this with me.”

 

            The magician focused on Yue, and Clow’s kind attention brought out a wave of shyness in the winged man.  Yue became suddenly uncomfortable with their close proximity, but it would have been strange for him to leave the bed for one of the small chairs.  Instead, he stretched out supine himself, his direction opposite Clow’s. He lay his head down beside his Master’s ankles.  Yue left his legs dangling over the side of the bed, and the drape of his long kimono covered his bare feet.  It was a position of false ease, because Yue’s heart was beating ferociously in his chest.

 

            “We haven’t spent time in just each other’s company for a very long while,” said Yue softly.  “I like your company, like this.”  He wondered if Clow could hear the longing in his voice, and if he would know what it meant.

 

            “No, you’re right,” said Clow.  “We haven’t been alone together since… longer than I can remember.  Has it bothered you?”

 

            Yue carefully considered his words.  “It’s different when it’s the three of us.  I feel that you are different with me when Cerberus is with us.”  Yue breathed slowly before he continued bravely on.  “I feel as though you have stopped noticing me,” he said, keeping the accusation out of his tone.

 

            Clow hesitated.  “Do you think that I take you for granted?” he asked uncertainly.

 

             “Some,” admitted Yue.

 

            The sorcerer sat up so that he could look at his creation.  “I _have_ gotten used to the way you take care of everything,” Clow confessed.  “You are so capable, and independent… I don’t mean to take you for granted.”

 

            It was Yue’s turn to study the ceiling.  He contemplated the composition of shadows thrown from the lamp on the table.  “I’m not independent,” he murmured.

 

            “Yue,” said Clow, “look at me.”  Reluctantly, Yue obeyed.  Without his spectacles, Clow’s eyes showed their rich depth with uncomfortable intimacy.  Clow continued speaking in sincere tones.  “I do appreciate you.  Believe that.”

 

            They were just words, but they filled Yue with a liquid warmth.  “I do,” he answered.  The sorcerer reached forward to touch Yue’s face, to brush a short lock of Yue’s hair with an affectionate caress. Yue wanted to close his eyes and purr at the touch.

 

            “How do I make up for my selfishness?” Clow asked seriously.

 

            Yue wanted to tell him to keep touching his hair.  He wanted to tell Clow to extend that touch to other places. For a moment, Yue thought that the sorcerer looked as though he might bring himself down to Yue; the possibility made Yue’s heart race so emphatically that he was sure that his maker could hear it resounding in the cabin’s space.

 

            “I’m in terror of what your silence means,” joked Clow.  “Are you plotting something involving manual labor?”

 

            Yue sat up to escape his impossible thoughts.  “Of course not,” he joked back shakily.  “I know how lazy you are.”

 

            “Which is exactly why I leave you in charge of everything,” answered Clow.  “When it was just Cerberus and I, we had a disaster, not a household.”

 

            “I’m envious, sometimes,” said Yue.  He relaxed, knowing that Clow could not see his face now that Clow was sitting behind him.  Yue was certain that his longing would show.

 

            “Envious?” Clow questioned.

 

            Yue felt Clow pull at a hair-tie and the shift in the weight of his hair as it was loosened.  He sat rigidly, wondering what Clow was doing.  “Of the time you had together before me,” he clarified.  He felt another tie being removed.

 

            Clow ran his hands over the expanse of Yue’s hair, making sure that it could move freely.  “With all my faults, you know a better me.  I was too hot-headed.  My efforts in creating the Cards took me down a few notches.  Cerberus truly humbled me.”  The magician freed Yue’s hair completely of all bindings.  “The more perfect my creations became, the more modest I became.  I know how little I deserve any of you.”

 

            Clow’s dexterous fingers were now weaving through Yue’s hair in an industrious manner.  “Clow?” asked Yue with trepidation.  “What are you doing?”

 

            “I have had neither study nor workroom for days,” stated the magician.  “I need to do something with my hands.”

 

            “Are you braiding my hair?” Yue gasped.  Clow made a non-committal sound.  “Clow, it crimps when its braided!”  Yue tried to turn his head.

 

            “Just hold still,” Clow murmured soothingly.  “I’ll take them back out.  And wash your hair until it’s satin again,” he promised.

 

            Yue was torn between indignity and appreciation of the wonderful sensations tickling across his scalp.  He chose to stay still and not think about how he would look with a head full of braids.  Clow worked deliberately, deftly separating and weaving the locks.  He ran his fingers through to the ends as the braid was built so that the ends would not tangle; in long hair like Yue’s, the ends tended to form an echoing braid at the bottom of the strands being woven.  The motions were hypnotically repetitive.  Yue could hear the soft rasp of his moving hair and the quiet breathing of the weaver.

 

            After an immeasurable passing of time, the magician startled Yue by speaking.  “You are a pleasant distraction,” mused Clow.  “I haven’t been bothered by my power fluctuations since I started this. I almost feel unaffected.”

 

            “I, in contrast, feel considerably affected,” Yue breathed.

 

            “By the rolling water?” asked Clow with concern.

 

            “By your fingers in my hair,” Yue admitted.

 

            Clow chuckled, and lifted a handful of thick silver braids.  He let a bundle of them run over his hands; his motion revealed Yue’s bare neck.  “They look lovely,” he teased.  “Maybe I should leave them in after all.”

 

            Yue was unconcerned by the threat because Clow had given his promise.  “If you do,” he said, “I will have to cut them out.”

 

            “You would never cut it,” Clow countered.  “That is an idle threat.”

 

            Yue thought about a reply.  He opened his mouth and was about to speak when he felt a cool breath breeze against his exposed neck.  Clow was intentionally tickling Yue by blowing in little tingling puffs.  Yue tensed.  He didn’t know how to react.  He didn’t know if this was merely teasing, or prelude to something more hoped for.  He closed his eyes and waited, wondering if he would soon feel Clow’s lips follow the tickling breath and if the touch of those lips would be warm or cool on his skin.

 

            “Yue?” said Clow.

 

            Yue’s response was a quiet “ _hm_ ”.

 

            “I give you permission to breath, now,” said an amused Clow. Using the original ribbons of cloth, he began to bundle the braids so that they re-formed the long, contained cord.  While Yue exhaled, the magician laughed softly.  He had expected his creation to jump, not to freeze so completely.  “The braids really do look lovely,” he mused.

 

            “If they please you,” said Yue with carefully chosen words, “then you may leave them in.”

 

            “Just for now,” said Clow.  “I couldn’t wash your hair yet anyway.  But I can have a basin sent in tomorrow.”  He again ran his hands over the silky ropes, and smiled when Yue shivered.

 

            “What awaits us, Clow?” asked Yue quietly.

 

            “In Japan?” asked the sorcerer.  “Since my foresight is strangely quiet about the near future, I hope that means idleness and ease.”  Yue seemed to be waiting for something more.  “For once, the future is pleasantly unknown,” Clow added.

 

            Yue turned around to face his Master.  “Do you think that you can sleep, now?” he asked.

 

            “Yes.  I think so,” Clow answered.  “If I can wake you again, perhaps we can make up for the time we have not spent together, alone.  I would look forward to more time like this.”

 

            Yue hid his elation.  “I would like that very much,” he said with reserve.  Sensing his time to be re-sealed, he rose from the bed.  “Goodnight, then, Master.”

 

            Clow smiled warmly.  “Goodnight, Yue.”

 

 

* * *

 


	3. Idleness & Ease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new house, choosing rooms, hotsprings

# Idleness & Ease

(Japan.  Circa 1900)

 

            Late afternoon sunlight, filtered through dusty windows, greeted Cerberus’ eyes as they came open.  He shivered the muscles under his skin to shake off the remnants of the spell that woke him and unsealed him from his sleep, stretched and looked around.  Clow was waiting expectantly for his reaction.  “Where’s Yue?” asked the lion.

 

            “Still sealed,” answered Clow.  “I wanted you to wake up first.”

 

            “Heh heh – that means I get first pick of the bedrooms, doesn’t it?” Cerberus chuckled.  He didn’t wait for his maker’s answer, but looked around, and spotting the stairs, dashed up them. After a running start, he spread his wings and flew the rest of the way.

 

            The magician sighed with contentment.  He was tired and dusty. It had been a long day’s travel from Tokyo to the estate, and he had gotten a late start in the morning already worn from the distance of Yokohama to Tokyo.  That part of the journey was, by necessity, via the limited conventional means of man and horse. Any use of magic would have been noticed.  Still, he felt better, just from being on solid land again. He felt rejuvenated. This was a country rich with magic, and as England of old neighbored Faerie Land, other dimensional realms resonated close to the green plane of his new home.  The dragon lines in the land resonated musically.  It was going to be a good place to spend the last century of his life, in idleness and ease, with the two companions dearest to him.

 

            It was time to wake Yue.  Clow lifted the book from its temporary perch atop a steamer trunk and carried it up the first flight of stairs.  He noticed the contrast of his dirty boots against the polished hardwood; in the future, he would go shoeless at home, as was native custom, he decided.  He paused as the stairs let out to the second floor hallway, sat down on the top step, and carefully lay the Clow book next to himself.  The sorcerer peeled off his heavy traveling coat, and with a small smile, he tossed his hat down to the lower level, watching it spin like a toy through the air.  He shucked himself of his morning coat as well and unbuttoned his cuffs and the neck of his shirt.  Finally, he set about unlacing his boots.

 

            After kicking off his socks, he wiggled his bare feet and enjoyed the coolness of the air on his skin before retrieving the book and hopping up.  He strode down the hall, eager now to wake Yue and show him the room that Clow had readied for his companion.  It had been difficult, to put it mildly, to co-ordinate getting all the books in and unpacked before the three companions would arrive, but Clow had wanted the library ready before anything else.

 

            Those hired to do the job had also taken the time to neaten the room.  The floors shined, and the Persian carpet was lay over the gleaming surface.  The comfortable chairs were arranged by the large windows. Though still dirty on the outside, the glass and sills were clean of dust on the room’s side.  All the books stood on the shelves with evidence of their packing removed.

 

            The magician released the seal on his companion, and Yue appeared with a hushed rustling of wings.  When Yue opened his eyes, he at first felt a brief pang of disappointment to see that they were no longer on the _China_.  Then Yue registered the contents of the space around him.  “I thought that you said that everything would be in disarray,” he said at the unexpected sight.  He walked over to a shelf; he ran his fingers lovingly over the spines of several books.  “They are all out of order!” he exclaimed with  a laugh.

 

            The magician walked over to join him, wearing a bemused expression.  “I didn’t think you would mind… arranging them to your liking again,” he said.

 

            “No, I don’t mind at all,” breathed Yue.  “I am just happy to see them out of storage.”  He pulled down a volume and let the pages relax open.  As he fondly caressed the written words, he said, “No mold or damage at all.  I know that I should trust your spells, Clow, but I have seen the damage that time can do… .”  His words trailed off.  He was smiling, already reading and lost in the prose.

 

            “I’m glad, then,” said Clow simply, knowing that Yue wasn’t listening.

 

* * *

 

            Cerberus inspected one room after another.  The house was big, though not as big as the Reed manor back in England.  He could see Clow’s style everywhere.  Instead of enclosed hallways, the upstairs had a walkway with railing on one side. It would be easy to fly from one level to the next.  The second flight of stairs looked like it led up to the attic and the roof; he would explore that later.

 

            The rooms themselves sometimes led into each other, and that was Clow’s style, too.  Cerberus opened doors to reveal closets or adjacent rooms; it was impossible to tell just from the door’s appearance. There was at least _one_ door that connected one room to another that _wasn’t_ adjacent.  If Clow hadn’t activated The Maze, Cerberus would eat Clow’s hat. Articles of furniture – beds, tables, the occasional chair – were scattered without much thought in various places, delivered but not organized.

 

            There were two rooms that he liked, and he debated which to claim as his bedroom.  Both had tall, wide casements that opened outward and used handles that would give him no trouble opening the windows with his paws. Each room was of equal size, each of them completely empty and in different parts of the house.  At last, he chose the one with the windows that faced south and east; he could wake with the sun rising and sleep on the comfortable-looking window seat in the afternoons. He padded around the room, inspecting the high ceilings. 

 

            Pleased with his choice, he went out to further investigate the second flight of stairs.  Clow’s cast off outerwear decorated the steps.  Yue couldn’t be awake yet, Cerberus thought, or else he would have already picked up after their Master.  The winged lion looked around; there was no other sign of Clow, but the sorcerer could be in any one of the maze of rooms.

 

              Cerberus bounded upward to find that the stairs led to a single, large attic room.  This would be Clow’s preferred workroom, Cerberus reasoned.  It had a glass skylight in the ceiling that allowed in plenty of sunlight and small windows where the eaves of the roof met the walls.  From the skylight, Cerberus flew out to the roof and took in the view of the surrounding landscape.  The sun was just beginning its downward drop under the rim of the horizon, its flaming light painting the forests and fields between in ochre and gold.  Cerberus stretched his wings to catch the escaping light and bath in the last of the day’s warmth.  He turned around in a circle to view the panorama of distant ocean to the east, and signs of habitation out beyond the estate’s boundaries.  With a whoop of joy, he launched off the roof onto a waiting thermal current, delighting in the renewed freedom of flight.

 

* * *

 

            Clow’s face showed an expression of contained laughter as he walked into the breakfast room.  He was carrying on a conversation with Cerberus, and Cerberus was happily using his newly acquired Japanese.  The way he spoke had an oddly emphatic quality to it, but Cerberus tended toward linguistic flourish even in English.  Still, Yue noticed Clow’s smile and suspected mischief.

 

            At Clow’s suggestion, they had gone into Tokyo again shortly after their arrival.  The sorcerer had taken the opportunity then to fulfill his promise to Cerberus, and now the lion had a native’s knowledge of spoken Japanese.  The merchant at the meat bun stall, a rather colorful character in Yue’s opinion, hadn’t even noticed the brief trance that the magician had put him under; the lively little man had continued the energetic praise of his goods as smoothly as if his advertising had been uninterrupted.  Clow and Cerberus were well practiced in the maneuver, having transferred language and other knowledge several times before.

 

            Yue disliked the practice.  He didn’t like the way mannerisms carried over from the native speakers, and preferred to spend the extra time learning the structure and rules of a language.  And he didn’t quite trust his Master’s choice of donors; when Cerberus ‘picked up’ Italian, he’d developed a tendency to gesture largely while speaking it, claiming that it ‘just didn’t sound right unless you used your hands’. But if Cerberus wanted to speak Japanese like a nikuman vendor, that was really his choice to make, Yue thought.

 

            “I think that we should become accustomed to speaking the native language at home,” announced Clow after the three exchanged morning greetings.  He pulled out a chair for himself at the breakfast table while Cerberus jumped up onto the long bench that served as the lion’s seat.  “Now that Cerberus can join us.”

 

             “It will be good practice for me,” Yue contemplated.  “I think that I still have a tendency to clip my vowels.”  Already using his studiously learned Japanese, he spoke more slowly than Clow.

 

            Not looking at Yue, Cerberus said something that was completely undecipherable to Yue.  Whatever it was, it made Clow bark with laughter, and then admonish his older creation with a scolding look.

 

            “I’ll guess that that was some kind of insult,” said Yue dryly.  “Really, Cerberus, it lacks sting if I can’t understand it.”  He made a mental note to himself to ask Clow, when Cerberus wasn’t around, what the colloquialism _did_ mean.

 

            “Let’s keep a civil tongue around the table,” said Clow with forced seriousness.  “Remember that Yue made those scones you are so heartily enjoying.” Clow began to serve himself. Yue joined the other two at table and served tea.  Clow reflexively sipped at his cup as soon as it was set before him; just as the hot lip of the cup kissed his own lip, he remembered that he would need to add sugar.  The mild taste of Darjeeling passed into his mouth, cooled with milk, and -- to Clow’s surprise -- sweetened perfectly.  He looked at Yue over the steaming cup. Yue showed a feigned interest at the view beyond the window.

 

            Cerberus caught the pause and look.  “Did Yue dip a kipper in your tea?  Or was it pepper this time?” he asked with glee.

 

            “Sugar,” answered Clow, a combination of wonder and tenderness in his voice.

 

            “Just drink it before it gets cold,” said Yue lightly, looking at the table.

 

            Clow set his emptied teacup in the range of Yue’s downcast view.

 

* * *

 

            Yue’s choice of bedroom turned out to be the one that was Cerberus’ second choice.  It was on the western side of the house near Clow’s bedroom, but the library, a study, and several other rooms lay between the two.  After the two magical creations organized the lion’s room, which took almost no time, they co-operated on setting up Yue’s room.  Like his sibling, Yue wanted very little furniture, but they took their time dusting and laying down the tatami matting to which Yue had taken a fancy.  In Yue’s room, they were safe from the Clow Cards that were whizzing around the house at their Master’s bidding.

 

            “Perhaps we should be helping Clow,” suggested Yue, after a loud thumping impact echoed from down the hall.

 

            Cerberus hopped up onto Yue’s bed, where Yue was sitting with his feet up on the coverlet.  “Nah.  It’s pretty dangerous out there.  He cast The Little to pack, so The Big is doing the unpacking with The Through. I’d rather stay out of the way of The Power and The Shadow. Anyway, he’ll call us if he needs us.”

 

            Yue looked across the room to where he had just hung the woodblock print that the magician had bought for him during their Tokyo excursion. It seemed to be hanging straight, but he wasn’t sure about the placement. Slightly higher and more to the left would be a better composition on that wall, he decided, hovering upright and alighting across the room. “I’m not sure why he insists on so much furniture,” murmured Yue. “The style of the native homes makes so much more sense in this climate.”

 

            “I like the house,” defended Cerberus.  His eyes roved over the minimalism in the room.  “You look like you’ve gone native, yourself.”

 

            Yue glanced over at his sibling, and then down at himself.  He was wearing a double layered kimono -- another gift from Clow – instead of his usual robes.  The silk was heavier and thicker than what he usually wore, but the skirted shape and loose sleeves were less binding.  “This _is_ our home now, Cerberus,” the winged man answered.

 

            Cerberus stretched out until his golden body extended the entire length of the bed.  “Yue, is there a Japanese version of my name?” he asked.  “Yours and Clow’s aren’t any different, really, but mine doesn’t seem to work without switching back to English.”

 

            Yue carefully thought over his sibling’s question.  “ _Keroberos_ , I think, similar to the Greek form,” he answered at last.  “With the harder sound, and a lilt to the syllables.  The language doesn’t really have stresses.”

 

            Cerberus took interest.  “Wheh,” he said.  “I think I like it.”

 

            “What – Keroberos?”

 

            “Yeah,” said the lion brightly.  He jumped up to his four feet, mussing the neatly tucked-in bedding.  “ _I am the mighty Keroberos_ ,” he practiced.  He leaped off the bed and dashed out into the hall, calling, “Hey, Clow!  What do you think of this?”

 

* * *

 

            On a day that was sunny but beautifully cool, the three companions came upon a series of pools, laid out like steps, of very clear, cold water.  A moment of investigation revealed that the largest pool, deep enough to swim in, was the outlet of a spring and the source of all the smaller pools as well as the stream that ran from them.

 

            Exploring the acreage around the manor had become a favorite afternoon pastime.  On any given occasion, one of them, usually Clow, would pick a random direction, and the three would begin walking until they found something of interest.  On other days, Clow had pointed out faerie gates in two places, and they had also come across the nests of yokkai.  Since the yokkai had thus far not caused any trouble, they left them undisturbed.  Cerberus and Yue both notice that their Master was unsurprised about the dimensional gateways, but both of them had refrained from commenting, even to each other.

 

            The pools were shaded with trees, and the air in the clearing was crisply moist and filled with a mossy scent.  “Wonderful,” Yue purred, crouching down and reaching his hands into the water.  “It’s so clear.”

 

            The winged lion investigated with the tip of his paw.  “It’s so cold!” he complained.  “Clow?”

 

            The sorcerer nodded.  “Mm-mm, I agree,” he said.  With a smile and only a small magical effort, he asked The Earthy to adjust the underground path of the spring so that it became warmed by a geothermal pocket.  In minutes, the water effervesced with the new warm flow.  The magician stripped off his robes and splashed into the deep pool with Cerberus following and making voluminous waves.  Clow swam to the edge nearest Yue and leaned against the rocks.  “Come on in,” he said with a wink.  “The water is fine.”

 

            Yue looked at his creator in the water, at the sparkling droplets clinging to his lashes, at the wet hair coming loose from its tie and sticking to his cheeks.  Mischief was in his Master’s face.  Yue felt an impulse of heat starting around his collar.  He stood up quickly to hide his impending blush and stepped back before Clow could pull him into the pool, clothes and all.  “Just a moment, wait,” he said, feeling an unfamiliar shyness.  His wings vanished.  Efficiently, he disrobed and then set his clothing onto some dry moss.

 

            He walked quickly to the pool and sank into the warmed water, closer to Cerberus than to Clow.  “Hey-ey, don’t crowd me,” the lion grumped, and paddled around to the other bank.  When Clow reproachfully raised his eyebrows at Yue, Yue felt the blush again rushing over his fair complexion and down his neck.  He hid his face by ducking under the water’s surface.

 

            The temperature was perfect now, just on the edge of hot, the warmth relaxing Yue’s muscles. Before Clow’s intervention, the pool’s cold to kept life from growing in it, so the stones were smooth, not slimy, and the bottom was sand rather than dirt and water weeds.  The taste was sweet with minerals.  Yue wondered if all the springs in Japan tasted like this.

 

            The clear water eased the heat of his skin.  There was no reason for this sudden shyness, he told himself, no reason to blush just from making eye contact with Clow.  He wanted to take a breath, but held himself under for just a little longer.  Feeling his self-control regained, he stood up gracefully, letting the water stream over his face and down the cascade of his hair. 

 

            When Yue came back to the air, he saw that Clow had immersed himself completely except for his face and was floating on his back, looking up through the trees.  Maple branches with new green leaves framed billowy white clouds in a turquoise sky.  It was as still as a painting.

 

            “Could a moment ever be more perfect?” asked the sorcerer rhetorically.

 

            After half a moment of considering, Cerberus interjected, “I wish we had some hot nikuman.  I like those.”

 

            “You liked bao too,” said Yue. “You said that the meat buns that Madam Chen made were as good as the ones in Hong Kong.”

 

            “They’re different!” insisted Cerberus.  “Lots of things are different.  Takoyaki!  Yakisoba!  Botamochi!”

 

            “Things beside food, too,” murmured Yue.

 

            Clow looked from one companion to another.  “Are you two happy?” he asked with concern.  “With the move?

 

            “Sure!” affirmed Cerberus, paddling around the perimeter of the pool.  “One place is as good as another.  Right, Yue?”

 

            “Anywhere with you, Clow,” Yue replied.  His eyes, reflecting the glimmers of light on the water, had a soft glow to them.

 

            Clow smiled at the comment.  It was as it should be; they belonged to him, with him.  It always took time to adjust to a new place.  Still, they always had each other to count on, in every new place.

 

            “Yue, let me wash your hair,” Clow said suddenly, taken with a whim.

 

            “Here?!” Cerberus exclaimed, annoyed.  He started to paddle away.  “Wait, at least let me get out of range before you unleash that mess!”

 

            Yue made a sour face at his brother while obeying his Master’s wish.  The magician made a seat out of a boulder and Yue settled between his feet, then helped Clow undo the tight wrapping that kept his waterfall of hair under control.  Released, the silvery-white strands flowed around the two of  them, swirling in the currents of their movements.

 

            Yue dipped his head back, his eyes closed, to immerse the top of his head.  Clow caught him in his hands, and Clow’s fingers cradled Yue’s scalp, sinking deeply into the wet hair.  Yue kept his eyes closed, afraid of what a look might betray to his creator; he relaxed his breathing, letting himself fall into the light trance brought on by the intimate sensations.  He felt the closeness of his shoulders and arms to Clow’s bare legs, under the water.  His head grew heavier as the water soaked into his hair.  He had to depend on Clow holding him up.

 

            Time seemed to melt.  The air was quiet except for splashing sounds, so quiet that Yue could hear leaves falling.  Deprived of visual stimulus, his body focused on the slight sounds, the warm water, the rougher skin of Clow’s fingertips.  His hair really didn’t need washing; he could keep it clean in a simpler manner.  This was just something that Clow liked to do, and something that Yue liked Clow to do.

 

            And for some reason, that annoyed Cerberus to no end.

 

            “I’m bored,” the lion shouted loud enough to echo in the glade.

 

            “Only boring people get bored,” Yue answered him.  He hoped that Clow wouldn’t give in this time.  He opened his eyes and fixed his leonine brother with an acid look.  Clow hadn’t touched his hair like this since the last time that they had been alone, and Yue wanted this selfishly.

 

            The magician removed a hand from Yue’s hair just long enough to gesture at his pile of robes.  “Bubble?” he called.  A Card spun outward from the folds and flew directly to Cerberus.  Foam covered the lion’s head as he protested.

 

            “Aw, Clow!  She spent all morning cleaning the house!  Hey, that tickles!”

 

            “Now you have something to do,” said the Master simply.

 

            Yue tried not to laugh.  In fact, he tried not to do anything that would distract Clow from massaging his head.  He especially tried not to think about what those fingers would feel like sliding over his chest, or touching his side along the hip. . .  like Clow’s foot was doing _right now_. . . !

 

            Surprised and flustered, Yue hurriedly straightened up, moving out of Clow’s reach.  His wet hair slapped heavily against his neck and shoulders.

 

            “Oh, did I tickle you?” Clow asked.  His tone was concerned, but his expression was sly and teasing.

 

            Yue walked into the shallows until he was only waist deep, then started squeezing the water out of his hair.  Half its length was still in the water, trailing around his legs.  “No, I. . . think it’s time to start drying off,” he finished lamely.  “I’m starting to prune,” he laughed, showing his Master his hands.

 

            Clow bit back the lewd comment that he had been about to answer with; it would have been too much for his shy creation.  Instead, he silently admired the way Yue’s muscles flexed.  The magician knew every physical detail of him, not just from his making, but also from living with him for so long.  There were some emotional aspects of Yue, however, that Clow had recently found himself wondering about.

 

            Clow released The Windy and The Firey to dry Yue’s hair, and continued to watch Yue while they ministered to him.  Yue smiled at Windy and let her place an airy kiss on his face. The two had always been close, and sometimes Yue referred to her as his “little sister”.  Windy acted more as an older sister to Yue, however, like when she scolded Firey for getting too close to Yue’s tresses.

 

            Cerberus jumped out of the water just as Yue was again binding his hair.  After shaking himself, sending water all over, he demanded his share of attention from the Card pair.  “Coming out of there, yet, Clow?” he asked, casting the magician a cryptic look.

 

            The sorcerer swam over to the pool’s bank and sloshed his way out.  “Keroberos,” he said, using the variation of his creation’s name, “I don’t think you fully appreciate a good soak.”

 

            “I don’t think your brain can stand to get any more water-logged,” said the lion.  “It’s rotten enough already.”

 

* * *

 


	4. Teaser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Japan, Clow Estate, the third month after moving in)

# Teaser

(Japan, Clow Estate, the third month)

 

 

 

            Keroberos popped his head into Yue’s room.  “Clow’s back,” he said.

 

            “I know.  I heard him come in,” Yue said, hastily folding the last washi square into one more origami unit.  “I’m almost finished,” he said with an impatient sigh.

 

            The rest of Keroberos entered the bedroom.  He stepped over to Yue and stretched up on the table to watch his sibling assemble the box.  The lid and the base were each made up of a dozen folded pieces, the uniform squares transformed into a series of angled shapes.  Yue’s deft fingers fitted the pieces together with care while wearing a small frown on his face.

 

            “He says that he has something for you,” said the lion.  “You’ve been working on that all day, haven’t you?”

 

            “It’s done,” Yue mumbled, focused on the difficult connections before him.  “I finished a while ago, but I wanted a good box for it.”  He finished the base of the box and set it aside, moving onto the lid.  He concentrated on getting the small tabs into their uncooperative pockets without destroying the precisely folded units.  At last he creased in the decorative pinwheel pattern in the center of the lid, and checked the fit of each half of the finished box. 

 

            Also on the table, waiting to be nested into the origami box, was the project that Yue had been working on all day.  It was wrapped in a silk handkerchief, which he unfolded, holding it up so that Keroberos could see.

 

            “Looks good,” said Keroberos, eyeing the intricately knotted cord with a speculative eye.  “What’s it for?”

 

            Yue caught the knot in his palm, bringing it up flat and contemplating his own work.  “It’s for his hair,” he said self-consciously.  Positioning the iridescent shell beads correctly while weaving the knot had required focused care; more than once, he had found himself at points where a small mistake would have ruined the whole creation.  The dark red silk cord was heavy and slippery and didn’t like to hold the smaller twists that created the over-all knot.  And the knot had a secret: hidden in its weave was a single strand of Yue’s own hair.  The silver would have shone out like lighting in a stormy sky if Yue had made an error anywhere.  As it was, his Master would never know what the knot contained unless Yue told him.

 

            “You put a lot of effort into it,” Keroberos said.  “He’ll like it,” he added encouragingly.

 

            Yue gave his brother a smile of gratitude.  “He’s downstairs?” he asked, straightening the pristine fall of his clothing.  He carefully placed the day’s effort in the paper box and cradled the gift in his hands.

 

            “In the kitchen,” answered the lion.

 

            Yue dawdled a moment longer.  “Do you want to come with me?” he asked Keroberos.

 

            The lion swished his tail.  “Clow said that he wanted to see you alone,” said the creature without concern.

 

            Yue turned the origami box in his hands, looking for an imperfection.  “Did he say why?” he asked.

 

            “Who knows why Clow does anything,” Keroberos asked rhetorically.

 

            Yue wavered.  It was becoming more and more difficult for him to be alone with his maker, lately.  Innocent, ordinary situations mutated into moments of tension, but only for him – Clow always seemed just as calm and jovial as always.  It was all that time alone together on the ship, Yue conjectured.  Intimate time, but without the kind of intimacy that Yue wanted.

 

            It was heaven and hell, Yue thought, for the three of them to be so removed from the rest of the world now.  He had a larger share of the sorcerer’s attention, but there also was very little to distract Yue from his hopeless dreams.  More than once, he was sure that his feelings were transparent to Clow.  The love-knot that he’d made was chancing a confession, but Yue had been unable to resist making the gift.

 

            Yue gave his brother an absent-minded rub on the shoulders before heading downstairs.  He unfurled his wings and drifted quietly down the staircase, alighting at the base of the stairs with the intention of walking to the kitchen from that point.  He was almost to the kitchen doorway when he stopped, and in a moment of panicked cowardice, stashed his gift to Clow in a cabinet that was otherwise empty.  Hands clasped together, he entered the kitchen.

 

            The magician busied himself with unpacking various boxes, casks, and jars and stowing them away in the many cabinets.  When Yue walked in, he looked up and smiled, making Yue smile in answer.

 

            “How was your excursion?” Yue asked.

 

            Clow’s eyes twinkled behind his lenses.  “Very successful,” he said.  “Did Keroberos tell you that I brought something for you?  I found something that you will like,” he said enticingly.

 

            Yue’s Master wasn’t going to tell him outright, but Yue had to play his part of the usual game.  “What is it?” he asked.

 

            The sorcerer’s smile deepened.  “I’ll give you three guesses,” he said.

 

            Yue pretended to consider.  “Something to read?”

 

            “No,” said Clow.

 

            Yue studied his Master, even though Clow’s twinkling eyes were disarmingly distracting.  “Something to wear?” the winged man asked.

 

            “Yue, you’re not even trying,” said Clow with playful disappointment.  “I’ll give you a big hint –  it belongs in this room, most of the time.”

 

            Looking at Clow curiously, Yue asked, “It’s something to eat?”  Clow nodded solemnly.  “What is it?” Yue asked again.

 

            The sorcerer pulled a kitchen chair away from the table and motioned to his creation.  “Sit down,” he invited.  With growing curiosity and a touch of suspicion, Yue obeyed.  “Now close your eyes,” Clow commanded coyly.

 

            Yue inhaled evenly and brought his lids down.  He peeked them open again, but Clow was looking at him with expectation, so Yue closed his eyes again, tightly.  He lifted his chin slightly. He could hear Clow opening what sounded like a lacquered box and setting it down on the table. Yes, it was definitely a lacquered box; it had that peculiar light sound to it, unlike plain wood or ceramic, and the smaller inserts rattled inside of it.

 

            “Open your mouth,” said Clow.  Yue could almost _hear_ him smiling.

 

            Yue swallowed the wetness in his mouth before opening his lips. He heard the magician’s sleeves rustle, and then _something_ was in his mouth. He closed his lips on it and it sat on his tongue, vaguely square but starting to almost melt. There was a resistant aspect to it.  Like aspic, but worse. Experimentally, Yue pressed it against his palate.  It had a striking lack of flavor, and a texture that was… unpleasant. Yue’s choices were to spit it out or swallow it. Although he considered the former, he opted to quickly swallow it without further chewing.  He opened his eyes narrowly, only to see his Master looking at him with repressed laughter.

 

            “Clow,” said Yue with restraint, “what did I just eat?”

 

            “I was told that it is called _konnyaku_ ,” said Clow.

 

            “Why did you think I would like it?” asked Yue with disbelief.  “I would rather eat caviar.”

 

            The sorcerer chuckled, unable to stop himself.  “I never said that the _konnyaku_ was what I brought for you,” he teased.  “I just wanted to see your expression when you ate it.”

 

            Yue felt a mix of embarrassment and hurt that he knew was disproportionate to the cause.  The little joke was typically Clow; in the past, he would have taken it lightly. To hide his true feelings, he glared at Clow with mock annoyance. “Childish,” he stated derisively.

 

            The magician raised an eyebrow.  “Who’s childish?” he questioned.

 

            “You are,” answered Yue with a touch of petulance.

 

            Clow placed his hand on the table and leaned in closely to his creation.  “You’ll be nicer to me when you find out what I brought you.”

 

            Clow was too close; Yue could not meet his eyes.  “Maybe I do not want it,” he said woodenly.

 

            “Come now, Yue, don’t be angry,” said Clow.  He touched the other man lightly on the chin.  “I’ll be sincere this time.  But you should close your eyes again.  The surprise will be better.”

 

            When Clow’s fingers touched his chin, Yue’s stomach flipped.  He was thankful for the _konnyaku_ ’s lack of substance.  Clow was close enough that Yue could smell the herbal soap that the magician used to wash his hair.  He met Clow’s eyes, and to escape their mind-blanking depths, he closed his own.

 

            “That’s better,” said Clow softly.

 

            Clow’s breath whispered against Yue’s cheek.  Startled, Yue opened his eyes again, but held still.  Clow’s face was a hand’s span away from his own, though Clow’s expression was one of total calm, as if this was well within his range of comfort.  “You have to keep them closed,” he said.

 

            Yue swallowed.  “I don’t want to,” he resisted.

 

            “Yue…,” the magician coaxed.

 

            “No,” said Yue.

 

            Clow tipped his head.  “Don’t be contrary,” he wheedled.

 

            “ _No_ ,” said Yue, more insistently but with less conviction.

 

            “I’ll be serious,” Clow promised.  He moved in slightly closer with his words.  Then he winked.

 

            Yue pressed him palms into the sides of the chair seat and closed his eyes in a hurry.  Under the onslaught of Clow’s nearness, he couldn’t think clearly.  At least with his eyes closed, he could almost quell the surge of feeling that was threatening to overwhelm him.

 

            “And open your mouth,” insisted Clow.

 

            Very tentatively, Yue parted his lips with a small, hitched breath.  He felt Clow’s body heat vanish as the magician moved away, and was briefly disappointed.  The warmth returned as Clow’s hand came close to Yue’s face.  A fingertip touched his lips and traced its way to their center.

 

            He recognized the scent first, and his eyes flew open.  Yue licked out with the tip of his tongue to taste a familiar bitterness dusted on the sorcerer’s fingers.  Realizing what he had just done, he pulled away quickly.

 

            “I knew you would like it,” said Clow smugly.

 

            “Where did you find cocoa?” Yue asked with wonder.  He was still embarrassed by his tasting of Clow’s fingertips, and the feeling was mixed up with his elation at the long-missed taste of chocolate.

 

            “I coaxed a few kilos out of a Dutch merchant,” revealed the magician proudly.  “He’s agreed to become a regular supplier.”

 

            “But we’ll need cream…  wheat flour and eggs if you want to make a cake…” listed Yue hopelessly.

 

            “How cruel do you think I am?” asked Clow.  “That same merchant has a small herd of Guernseys.  I brought everything that I need to make a cold pudding.”

 

            “Keroberos will love you for it.”

 

            “And you?” asked Clow lightly.  “Will you love me for it?”

 

            Yue couldn’t keep the smile on his face.  He struggled for something to say. “We can mix it with dried peppers. If we have any _achiote_ left, we could have _mole,_ ” he said, looking at anything but Clow. Clow’s hand touched Yue’s hair in a friendly caress, a few light touches not unlike the way that Yue had parted with Keroberos. Then, without saying anything else, the sorcerer left the room.

 

            Yue sank his head into his hands, and sat that way, breathing carefully, until he heard paws heading down the hall toward the kitchen.  Composing himself, he looked up just as Keroberos walked in.  The lion placed his forepaws on the table to inspect the contents of the lacquered box.

 

            “You don’t want to eat that,” warned Yue.

 

            “Why?  What is it?” asked his sibling.

 

            “Just don’t eat it,” sighed Yue.  When Keroberos started to laugh knowingly, Yue scowled at him.

 

            “So what did he think?” queried the lion, after his hooting noises died down.  When Yue looked at him without comprehension, Keroberos explained, “The ornament that you made him.  What did he say?”

 

            “I didn’t give it to him,” Yue answered tersely.

 

            Keroberos sat back on his haunches.  “Why not?”  Yue shook his head wordlessly while looking at his hands.  “But you spent all day on it,” the lion insisted without comprehension.

 

            Yue lifted his eyes to look at his brother.  “He is always teasing me,” he said despairingly.  “I don’t know what he means by it.”  He dropped his voice to a murmur.  “I don’t know if it means anything.”

 

            Keroberos grew serious.  “You want it to mean something,” he stated bluntly.  Yue nodded.  “You’re treading dangerous ground, brother,” said Keroberos.  He began pacing in front of Yue, who finally stood up and moved to stand by the outer door.  Yue looked out one of the windows as if contemplating the herb garden.  Keroberos finally controlled his agitation and sat down facing his sibling.  “What do you want?” he asked firmly.

 

            Yue traced fingertips against the glass.  “Don’t you think he could…” he started, letting his words trail into nothing.  He frowned, and tried again.  “He might want something… stable.”  Yue had trouble finding the words to express what he wanted to say.

 

            “You know, it’s not always one-nighters with Clow,” said Keroberos harshly.  “He kept a mistress while we were in San Francisco.”

 

            “I _know_ ,” hissed Yue.

 

            “If you want something more than a tumble, you’re going to get your heart broken,” insisted the lion.

 

            Yue cast him a shocked look at his blunt words.  “It’s… it’s not like that—” the winged man protested.  “I don’t think that Clow –”

 

            Keroberos continued over his sibling’s protest.  “It’s just the way he is.  He’s been entertained by women _and_ men from England to North America!  And Greece – I’m sure there was something going on in Greece... ,” he mused.

 

            Yue fidgeted with the sash on the curtains.  “I don’t want to think about it,” he said.  “I know what you’re saying, Keroberos, but I don’t want to think about it.”

 

            “But you _need_ to think about it,” the lion said gently.  “You keep stuffing your head with romantic stories and you’re going to start believing them.  You’re taking him too seriously.  I hate to say it but...”

 

            “Then _don’t_ say it,” Yue pleaded.  “Please.”  He turned to Keroberos, crouched down and put his arms around his brother’s neck. “I can’t help the way I’m feeling. If I could just tell him... he doesn’t have to feel the same way. I just want him to know.”

 

            “And then what?” remonstrated Keroberos.  “You’re setting all of us up for disaster.”

 

            “You don’t know everything,” Yue accused.  “You’re not always right.”

 

            Keroberos blew out a heavy, exasperated sigh.  “You aren’t even interested in listening, are you, Yue?  I’m trying to look out for you.  Be objective about this, you’re good at that.”

 

            “There’s nothing objective about being in love!” Yue shouted.  He heard his own words and felt stunned.  He had _said_ it, _out loud_ .  There was no taking it back now.  Keroberos was looking at him with a dark expression.  Yue couldn’t take that look anymore; he walked out of the house.  Strangely, Keroberos did not follow him.

 

            He shut the door brusquely as he walked out, but he knew that his sibling could easily have opened it and come out after him.  He was thankful for the reprieve. He knew that Keroberos was right, and he didn’t want to face it.  If he told Clow, and it went badly, it _would_ be disastrous.  He had known that truth in his heart, and it had made him shy about a gift that would have been otherwise innocent.

 

            The air in the garden was fresh and sweetly scented, but Yue still felt its smallness and closeness to the house.  He started walking away from the manor toward the outer gardens.  Beyond the low brick wall, the paths opened up to trees, and he followed one of them, heedless of where it led.

 

            It didn’t take long for Yue to realize that The Loop had been cast on the gardens. He should have walked out onto open meadow, but he was still among the trees. It didn’t matter; all he needed was to walk, even if he was walking on paths confused by Clow’s magic. The tamed pathways were better than the wild spaces, anyway. His mind and heart were wild enough on their own and needed the imposed order.

 

            What was he going to do, he wondered.  He couldn’t let things go on as they were.  Whether Clow knew or not what he was doing, his teasing was torture.  If Yue told him to stop, Clow would certainly ask what had changed between them.  The teasing was in the magician’s nature; he had always been that way.

 

            Distancing himself physically from Clow was impossible, also.  Even if Yue had wanted to leave, he depended on his Master as his source of magic.  They had never tested how far apart they could be, or for what span of time, before Yue would start to fail.  Yue didn’t resent his dependence; it was part of who he was.  He would always be linked to his maker.

 

            He had to stop and sit because of the longing that the thought brought with it.  The pain was physical. If he had ever been hungry, he supposed that it might feel like this, only high in his chest, making it hard to breath.  It was an insistent need.  It made him desperate, confused between the desire to flee and the wish to throw himself at his Master’s feet.  Yue wasn’t even sure of the details of his longing.  He thought of touching Clow, but if he tried to imagine anything beyond burying himself in his Master’s arms, his mind refused to trespass.

 

            He couldn’t risk a situation where he might lose Clow’s favor, Yue decided.  If he was in love with Clow, it would have to remain undeclared.  Being close to him would have to be enough.  They already had a relationship of cameraderie, friendship, and trust; even if Yue’s soul hungrily cried out for more, it would have to be enough as it was.  Yue hardened his resolve.  He had decided.

 

            His mind folded and unfolded the same thoughts as time passed without his notice.  Clow finally came looking for Yue after Yue had been out in the gardens for hours, and the sorcerer found his creation sitting on a stone bench in quiet contemplation.  The expression on Yue’s face was distant and uncharacteristically cold.  Clow sat down beside him, waking Yue’s awareness.

 

            “You weren’t lost, I hope,” said Clow.

 

            Yue shook his head, but still didn’t smile.  He wasn’t completely paying attention.  “No, no…” he spoke softly.  “I was just… thinking about some things.”  He did look directly at the magician then, with a smile that came with effort.

 

            Clow felt a jolt of fear.  There had been times when Yue had been melancholy, but they were rare, and the cause was usually readily apparent.  “Are you homesick?” the magician inquired.

 

            Yue shook his head.  “Not really.  It’s good to be in one place again.”

 

            The magician considered.  “Is it something that you want to talk about?” he asked. Yue gave him an unreadable look before shaking his head again. At a loss of what else to do, Clow embraced Yue gently, offering a wordless comfort. Yue leaned his face onto the sorcerer’s shoulder and turned away so that Clow could not see his expression. “Tell me what I can do,” Clow offered softly.

 

            Yue breathed carefully.  He was tense, barely resting his hands on Clow’s back.  “This is enough,” he lied with false calm.

* * *

 


	5. First Kiss

# Kiss

 

Yue remained in low spirits. Clow began to pay special attentions to his companion in an attempt to banish Yue's drifting aloofness. It became a ritual to greet him with a hug or a reassuring touch, and Yue seemed to welcome the attentions. The grave look on his face lightened when Clow put his arms around him. Clow found himself making efforts to make Yue's lighter moments as frequent as he could.

 

The sorcerer found himself looking forward to the physical contact, too. After breakfast, when Keroberos had trotted off to amuse himself, the magician waited for Yue to finish clearing the table so that he could gather him up in a parting embrace. "What are you doing today?" he asked cheerfully, willing his mood to be catching. Yue looked up at him, the shadow of sadness tinting his eyes still, but not enough to cloud the deep violet-and-silver beauty of them. He was warm in Clow's arms, as satisfying as blankets upon waking.

 

"I am almost done with the library… for now," answered Yue. "I grouped by type, but I haven't decided how to alphabetized the different languages." He rested the point of his chin against his Master's shoulder. "It doesn't make sense to separate them, since the language is not the primary difference."

 

Clow smiled as he reluctantly pulled out of the embrace. "As long as it makes sense to one of us." Then he corrected himself. "As long as it makes sense to you. I can never find anything, even in my own desk," he joked untruthfully.

 

Yue's hand lingered on Clow's wrist for a moment longer before Yue let it fall to his side. "Will you be busy today?"

 

"For the morning," the sorcerer replied. Belatedly, he added, “Would you like to keep me company while I work?”

 

“I can find something to keep me occupied,” said Yue.

 

* * *

 

Clow asked a calm Keroberos, "Where is Yue?" when the silver-haired man was absent at lunch.

 

"Outside somewhere, I think," shrugged Keroberos. "I saw him heading out earlier." He jumped down from his seat, having finished his meal. "It's not like he needs to eat, Clow," he tossed off over his shoulder.

 

"I know, I know…" the sorcerer murmured. "I wish I knew what was bothering him."

 

The golden beast avoided comment, opening his mouth instead for a wide yawn. Yue had definitely missed out, he thought, because the meal had been delicious. Keroberos had enjoyed as much as his belly could take, and now he was ready to lie down somewhere and digest it.

 

"I think I'll go find him," said Clow decisively.

 

Clow pat Keroberos distractedly as they parted ways, Keroberos to the sun parlor and Clow to the gardens. When no sign of the winged man appeared near to the house, the magician ventured out further, where the paths opened to the uncultivated spaces. He extended his search until he found Yue, at last, on the slope of a hill.

 

Yue lay on the ground, motionless and partially hidden at the border of an elm tree's shadow. Clow's alarmed dash toward him slowed to a less concerned trot when he realized that Yue was not injured; he was reading. Yue lay stretched out on the grass, chin on his hands, engrossed in a pocket-sized novel propped open on a square of linen. Yue either did not hear his Master or didn't want to break off from reading. He didn't acknowledge Clow's presence until Clow's shadow connected the space between them.

 

 Looking at Clow with a smile like a cloud break, he pushed himself upright and dusted minute specks of grass off his clothes. He wrapped the book in the handkerchief and set it on his lap. "Hello," he said.

 

Clow felt a spark of relief at the appearance of Yue's smile. The sorcerer eased himself down on the grass beside Yue. "You're a pretty thing," he joked, playing the fool with a lecherous wiggle of eyebrows. "Can you be safe in these woods, unchaperoned?"

 

Yue regarded Clow with a considering look before ducking his head and playing his fingers through the grass. "I am well-protected," he said airily, playing along. "A lion fierce in claw and tooth guards my virtue."

 

"Nay," said Clow. "I have vanquished the Beast with an overly-heavy meal and a place by the window, warmed with the afternoon sun."

 

Yue laughed, but with a sound that intoned forced merriment. "Blackguard!" he accused. "You are morally insane."

 

"That I am," answered Clow, "but you're the one stealing my handkerchiefs." Puzzlement skittered across Yue's face until Clow reached forward and tapped the book. "I believe that is my monogram."

 

Yue looked sheepishly at his Master. "Sorry?" he offered.

 

Solemnly, Clow shook his head. He struggled to frown with false disappointment. "I'm afraid that's not good enough, Yue."

 

Clow saw Yue cringe at his tone, and he felt a twinge of guilt at his teasing. Yue silently bared the book of its makeshift cover, folded the square of cloth, and handed it back to his Master. Clow chuckled when Yue proffered the linen. After a moment of sly contemplation, the sorcerer pinned his creation with a weighty gaze.

 

"I think, for compensation," he said coyly, "that I need something more dear."

 

"Such… as… ?" hesitated Yue. Dread crossed his face like a dark cloud, quenching the light of his smile.

 

Without thinking it through, Clow looked at Yue's faltering smile and kissed him. The sorcerer leaned in with deliberate slowness, trying not to grin as he watched disbelief flutter into Yue's expression.

 

Clow Reed savored taking Yue's first kiss. Yue's surprise was charming, the way he held so unmoving, his beautiful violet eyes watching Clow half-lidded. Yue tasted like peppermints and some desert spice, like cardamom, a natural flavor to him, not from something he had eaten. It was incredibly erotic. Yue's lips were as soft as flower petals. Rather than drawing away, Clow leaned into the kiss more deeply. Their lips slipped past each other's until Clow felt teeth against his tongue and the heat of Yue's trembling breath, finally released.

 

As Yue began to return the kiss, Clow wondered at his own reaction. This small contact between them was awakening a passion of unanticipated proportions. More than the familiar effect of physical response, he felt a rarely known desire rise from the core of his being. Like a sleepy dragon, it coiled around the concept of Yue.

 

"That was unexpected," whispered Clow when they separated enough to speak.

 

Yue sounded more collected than Clow felt. "But not unwelcome," he said.

 

Clow reached his hand behind Yue's neck and pulled him close for another intense kiss. He pressed his chest against the other's, pushing Yue onto his back. Yue writhed sideways with a muffled squeak.

 

"My book!" he gasped, rescuing it from beneath the sorcerer.

 

Clow rolled to rest on one elbow. "I'll buy you another one," he complained.

 

"You can't," explained Yue patiently. "It has hand-written annotations and the author is no longer living."

 

"It's a book," Clow said flatly.

 

Yue looked insulted. "It’s my book," he insisted.

 

The sorcerer sighed with impatience. "Don't say you didn't feel anything."

 

"I felt you," Yue said, with a frown that was more uneasy than angry. "Anyway, that's not the point." He gently brushed crumbles of dirt from the book's cover. "I like to keep things… nice. Some things deserve a measure of respect."

 

Clow didn't think Yue was still just talking about the book. "I know how to take care of things," answered the magician.

 

"Maybe," said Yue.

 

Clow elicited a speculative sigh. After a moment's thought, he picked up the folded handkerchief and handed it back to his companion. With a rueful grimace, Yue took it back. He wrapped the little book carefully again and laid it down at arm's distance on a dry spot of grass. While Yue was still turned away, Clow again slipped his arms around Yue's waist and pulled him in for another kiss.

 

That same feeling, like a high humming, filled him again. Yue was yielding and demanding at the same time; his innocence and passion ebbed and flowed over each other. Clow could sense Yue's soul like a single pure note of sound.

 

"I have fallen in love with you, Clow," confessed Yue in a single breath. He murmured into Clow’s ear. "I love you."

 

"I love you, Yue," Clow answered him. As he said it, he knew it to be true. It surprised him.

 

Yue squeezed him closer, snuggling into the sorcerer, rubbing his fair cheek against the smooth cloth on Clow's shoulder. "I am glad," he murmured happily.

 

The magician ran a hand over the softness of Yue's hair and then let his hand continue on to caress the rising curve of one wing. Yue shivered. Clow lightened his touch; he ran just his fingertips over the feather edges, slowly, until Yue stretched out a the wing with a jolt.

 

"You're tickling me!" Yue complained, but be didn't push away from their tight embrace.

 

His protest only incited Clow to do worse. His other hand slipped inside Yue's clothes and found the bare skin curving over his lowest rib. This time Yue did jump and tried to get away. Clow held him fast around the waist. Yue only succeeded in pulling them both down to the turf. Yue lay atop his Master, caught in the sorcerer's strong hands. He fluttered his wings helplessly.

 

In his own way, Clow, too, was caught. He was fascinated by the way Yue's eyes shined, and how his pale cheeks now flushed a soft rose color. Clow's unplanned declaration worked on Yue like a spell, making his beauty into something new. The magician could not pull his attention away. He ran his hands up his creation's back and down again, over the lean hips and muscular thighs for as far as he could reach. Yue stopped resisting and instead brought his mouth down on Clow's.

 

Tasting the tentative probing of Yue's tongue, Clow thought of Yue's eagerness to learn, his quick mind and his intense attention. Yue was any teacher's ideal. He dissected and recombined the things that he newly learned with things nearly forgotten, almost matching Clow's own ability with experimentation. Yue was going to be, as Americans would say, a "firecracker". Willingness and creativity were the perfect traits for a bed partner.

 

With a proud smile on his lips, Yue pulled away from his kiss. His manner was enticingly sensual. But innocent as he was, he slid off of Clow and onto the ground beside him, thwarting Clow's lust. They were no longer even touching, but Clow could feel the radiance of happiness shining off of Yue.

 

Clow's studied Yue, but Yue looked at the unblemished dome of the sky. A deep, endless blue filled the view. Above their reclined bodies, a light, warm breeze brought a pair of tumbling butterflies near. The sunlight turned Yue's lashes transparent as he watched their aerobatics.

 

"Today," sighed Yue happily, "everything is perfect." He reached a hand out to finger the edges of the magician's embroidered robe. "You're perfect," he said, his voice full of adoration.

 

Clow laughed softly. "Hardly," he denied. "But you…" he said, shading Yue with his body and touching Yue's face with one finger. He faltered, lost for the moment in Yue's luminous eyes. It was easier to kiss than to think, so Clow stopped thinking.

 

Yue reached his arms around Clow's neck, at the same time pushing himself up onto his knees. Clow also crawled to his knees; he was enough taller than Yue to make their position wonderfully comfortable. They fit together well, Clow thought as Yue brought his wings out to shade them both.

 

Clow's need was starting to feel more insistent. He pressed himself more closely to Yue's body, but Yue was starting to tense. Yue wasn't pushing away, yet he began to hold his back rigidly, and his arms around Clow's neck loosened. Clow was reluctant to acknowledge the signals, but he knew that Yue was becoming afraid.

 

The sorcerer took the initiative and disentangled himself. He held Yue at a loose arm's distance, still in the circle of the soft wings. "Are you okay?" Clow asked gently. Yue nodded, his eyes closed. Clow resisted the desire to pull him close again. Regretting his next words, he murmured, "We'll stop for now. There is no need to rush."

 

Yue opened his eyes and met Clow's gaze, and there was an uncertain gratitude in them. They looked at each other without speaking. Finally, the magician stood up and offered his hand. Yue rose and held fast to the hand in his.

 

"Why don't we go for a walk?" Clow suggested.

 

"I think that would be nice," Yue said.

 

* * *

 

Clow stole kisses whenever he and Yue were alone, although, truthfully, sometimes it was Yue who initiated a hidden kiss. There was a thrilling appeal to their discretion. Sometimes they shared no more than a hasty brushing of lips behind a half-opened door, and sometimes their kisses were long and slow, but they were always sincere and loving.

 


	6. Closer Yet

# Closer Yet

 

"Sleep with me," Clow said, delaying Yue further down the hall. He smiled with gentle invitation, gesturing toward his bedroom doorway. Because Yue continued to hesitate, he coaxed, "We have slept together before. There is no need to be shy."

"We have slept beside each other before," Yue pointed out. "I'm… I'm not ready for more than that yet."

Clow caressed Yue's hand. "I will be a perfect gentleman," he promised. "But I want to hold you while we sleep."

Yue moved into Clow's arms. "Then yes," he said, and followed his Master into Clow's bedroom.

Yue had been in his Master's bedroom before, of course, though not for any length of time in this particular house, but this invitation changed the territory. Clow tended toward clutter, as the room showed. The furnishings he had chosen were heavy and ornately carved, though in understated dark colors of wood: a wardrobe with two doors, a vanity and comfortable chair, various small tables and chests, and the large four-poster bed with curtains. The curtains were certainly more for show than for practicality, since the house was always at a comfortable warmth. The bed itself was thick with bedding, topped with quilted covers of matte silk, all in dark reds and golden yellows.

Clow began to pull back the heavy covers, but he paused, and turning to Yue, said, "You know that I usually don't sleep dressed." He leaned against the mattress and looked at Yue speculatively.

"Nor do I," said Yue, looking distressed and uncertain.

The magician walked to his wardrobe, where after some digging he retrieved a soft ramie bathrobe and a plain muslin sleeping gown; he handed the robe to Yue. Quickly undressing, he pulled the indigo-dyed gown over his own head. "I'll wear the cap, too, if you like," he told Yue with a chuckle.

Yue smiled. Relaxing, he stepped out of his clothing and wrapped himself in the light but modest garment. Clow waved off the light, and they each slid into the bed, finding each other's bodies in the darkness. Yue rubbed his toes against his beloved's, and Clow rubbed back with his foot, making Yue laugh softly. "This feels nice," he whispered. The muslin of Clow's night clothes smelled like cedar with an accent of lavender; it had been in storage for quite a long time. Yue could feel the strong muscles of Clow's back under his hands through the cloth just as he could also smell Clow's scent beyond the lavender. Between the comforter and sheets, their close bodies were creating a pocket of sleepy warmth. With the thick window curtains drawn as they were, the room was deeply dark. To Yue, it was as if nothing else existed beyond his body, Clow's body, and the whisper of linens.

"I want to kiss you goodnight," said Clow. His voice, rich and melodic, was so close.

"I want you to," said Yue.

Clow shifted his arms lower and tighter around Yue, bringing him in closer. With small kisses he found Yue's lips, then kissed those lips deeply and tenderly. Yue gripped a handful of muslin, returning the kiss with the same intensity.

"Goodnight," said Clow. "I love you."

"I love you," said Yue. "Sleep well." In a cocoon of warmth, he drifted calmly into sleep. Clow listened to Yue's breathing change, growing slower and more rhythmic. He could almost hear Yue's heartbeat. Running his hands delicately up his beloved's back, he felt along the shoulder blades, between which Yue's wings would have been had they not been hidden. The robe was a symbolic barrier only and he could feel every curve and valley of Yue's body through it. He risked waking his creation by letting his hands wander in the length of his reach; Yue's body was muscular, toned, and perfect.

Had the one in his arms been anyone else, Clow would not have even tried to maintain a gentlemanly conduct. Even Yue would be easy to seduce under the circumstances. These particular circumstances, however, were a wondrous thing to Clow; they were completely new. Yue was not a trusting human youth, he was the creation of the magician's own soul. Given free will, he had chosen to love and desire his creator. He was the accumulation of Clow's ideas of perfection, so the sorcerer could not help but desire him, yet love, beyond that of an artist toward his opus, was not demanded. Still, the magician had fallen in love with Yue, a creature far beyond what the magician had created.

He let Yue's sweet breath brush across his face, wanting to kiss his beloved again but knowing that it would indeed wake him. Clow felt his own breathing begin to match the soft breaths, and his eyelids grew heavy, and Clow was lulled to sleep.

Outside of the blackness that followed from magical exhaustion, the magician slept more deeply than he ever had. It seemed that his eyes had just slipped closed when he opened them again to morning sunlight. Yue stirred slightly. Clow had to move his arm out from beneath his love's light body, but except for the tingling of feeling returning to that appendage, he felt immensely refreshed. He propped himself up on his waking arm, flexing his hand to return feeling to it, and allowed himself the pleasure of stroking Yue from shoulder to hip with the other hand. Yue was in the process of slowly waking , his sleep heavy eyes just barely fluttering open.

The sorcerer succumbed to temptation and extended his stroking, so that his right hand drifted into the parting folds of the robe that Yue was wearing; Clow slid his touch into intimate space, and found response. His fingers caressed silky hair, while his palm and thumb found a pleasant weight and pressure.

Yue's eyes came open more quickly. He exhaled a heavy breath, just short of a gasp, and his lips parted with an unformed question. His hands came up to Clow's chest and shoulder, and his head followed, hiding. While Clow touched him, he trembled.

Clow moved his still-stiff left arm around Yue's shoulders again, which again brought their faces level, and spoke softly to him. "Do you want this?" he asked. Yue nodded. Clow sighed with satisfaction. "Have you done this yourself?" he asked with a hint of teasing. Yue nodded again, barely perceptibly. He hid his face more deeply in Clow's chest. His breathing had become more strained. Clow kissed the top of his lover's head, rubbing his lips across the long, satin strands. "We'll both be more comfortable if you turn around," he suggested, slowing the motion of his caresses.

Quietly, and without meeting Clow's eyes, Yue obliged, though again he hid his face, now in the rumpled covers. They snuggled again into each other, and Clow pressed himself against Yue's back and returned gently to bringing Yue pleasure. The revised position gave him a better grip and range of motion, and earned a small, shaking whimper from Yue. Clow nuzzled and kissed Yue's neck and ear; he tickled the fingertips of his left hand over Yue's lips. Sensing the closeness of his beloved's climax, he offered meaty curve of the same hand, pressing it against Yue's teeth. "Bite me," Clow whispered with a hint of command.

Yue opened his mouth completely and his teeth slid over Clow's skin. He brought his teeth down on Clow's hand gingerly at first, but as his body grew rigid with the building pressure, his breathing grew harder, and so did the pressure of his teeth. At the moment when Yue's pressure released, he bit hard enough to make Clow swear and laugh.

"You nearly broke the skin," chuckled Clow, not at all mad and definitely aroused. He pulled Yue over so that he faced upward instead of away, forcing Yue out of hiding. He turned Yue's face to look at him. Yue looked at once satisfied and shy. Clow kissed his cheek with gentleness. "There is no reason to be ashamed of any of this," said the sorcerer. He placed a kiss on Yue's silent mouth. "It gives me pleasure to give you pleasure."

"I'm not ashamed," Yue expressed softly. His eyes flickered to Clow's and away repeatedly. "It's just that…" he said unsteadily, "I have loved you for so long…". He turned his head to kiss Clow's fingertips. "I didn't dare to imagine -" Yue let his words run out, his declaration unfinished.

Clow rolled himself over Yue so that, face to face, their bodies lay against each other and his loose hair made a curtain that draped against Yue's cheeks. He reached down and kissed him softly for several long minutes, and Yue kissed him back. Then Clow broke away and studied the gentle face beneath his, the parted lips and the draped lashes that veiled eyes full of mysterious thoughts. "What kind of fantasies do you have," asked the sorcerer coyly, and was gratified to see Yue's shock spread a blush that reached to his ears. "I want you to tell me," said Clow, letting his voice take the tint of command.

Yue gasped at the tone; he looked at Clow uncertainly. As his blushing color deepened, he licked his lips and pressed them together, unable to answer. He swallowed. "Master," he said, finally, averting his eyes.

Clow was unrelenting. "Why do you call me Master when we are in bed together?" he asked. "Is that how you like to think of me?" He placed a kiss on Yue's cheek, by his ear, and felt the intensified heat of the flushed skin. "Or would you like to command me?" he questioned seductively, and added, "Master Yue?"

Yue looked at his maker with wide-eyed shock. His blush vanished as his face blanched. "Clow!" he admonished breathily.

The magician chuckled, and rolled off of his captive, and propped himself up on one elbow. "It's just a game, Yue," he said with mirth. "Dominance and submission is a game that lovers play."

"I call you 'master' because you are my Master," said Yue, still sounding uncertain of himself.

"And I allow it as an endearment," said Clow seriously. "I have no need of servants, nor of slaves of any kind. I thought you understood that."

"Yes," said Yue. "I do."

Clow looked hard at Yue, then began to crawl out of bed, his own submission to the onset of another day. Yue stopped him with a hand on Clow's wrist and pulled him back into his arms.

"Can we stay in bed a little longer?" Yue asked sweetly of Clow.

"You silly thing," said Clow, before kissing him soundly. Yue laughed around the kisses, which led to more teasing, and then to tickling. When their belly muscles ached from excessive laughing, they rolled out of bed. Yue went to his own room to dress, and Clow went about his own human morning rituals.

. . .

Yue waved off eating that morning at breakfast, which was a simple affair, but sipped on a cup of black tea with milk and jam while the sorcerer ate and conversed with Keroberos. The topics were of no consequence, so Yue hardly paid attention to the words. Instead he gazed openly at Clow, for once not afraid to be caught while he considered poetic comparisons to the black color of Clow's hair. He watched the muscles shift in Clow's face while he talked. Keroberos noticed, though he pretended not to see or react to it.

"I'll take care of the dishes," Yue offered. He chanced the violation of discretion with a kiss to Clow's cheek. The magician returned a kiss to Yue's forehead. They shared a smile before Yue left the room.

Keroberos made a throat-clearing grumble to regain his maker's attention. "Let's walk and talk, Clow," he said, sliding off his bench to the floor. He led the way outdoors without looking back to ascertain that Clow would follow him. Unconcerned, Clow did follow.

. . .


	7. Beasties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keroberos takes Clow aside for a serious talk.

# Beasties

 

"Something's different with you and Yue," said Keroberos, once he and his maker were alone. Clow gave his companion a level gaze. He continued walking along to the path without answering. They came to a shaded grove. Clow stepped off the path as if lounging the morning under the trees had wholly been his idea.

 

Keroberos was not one to be brushed off. Like the lion form he resembled, he went for the metaphorical throat. "You've started a carnal relationship with him."

 

Clow looked annoyed. He squirmed. He exhaled deeply. "Yes," he admitted.

 

"Mpmh. Why?"

 

Clow laughed lightly. "What do you mean?"

 

Keroberos held back a growl with difficulty. "He's in love with you. Don't break his heart." It angered him that Clow could be so cavalier.

 

"I'm in love with him too," he said, as leaned back against a tree. He slid down to the roots and settled himself. The magician took the tie out of his hair and shook it loose, combed through his hair with his fingers, and retied his tail. His words, in combination with his manner, displayed an unconcerned attitude.

 

Keroberos sat down on the mossy damp grass next to him. "Do you mean that?"

 

Disbelief and mischief crossed the sorcerer's face. "Keroberos!"

 

"Well, you've said it before. You're careless with hearts, Clow, even if you've been careful hiding your lovers. And Yue knows about them anyway. He says he chooses not to think about it."

 

Clow began to exhibit some anger of his own. "I would never hurt either of you. I love Yue. And I love you."

 

Keroberos harumphed heavily. "Okay, Clow, but I needed to say it. And I love you, too." He began to pick at the pads of his toes, grooming using his mighty teeth. He paused mid-lick. "Wait - you don't love me _that way_ , do you?"

 

"Wha - OH. No! No, you're completely safe, Keroberos."

 

"Good. I really love you, Clow, but I wouldn't want to do _that_. Yeesh." He shivered in distaste.  When he finished grooming his claws, he put his head down on Clow Reed's knee. He lifted it up again after a second of consideration. "You mean that, right? Because you made Yue, and you made me. I'm not a human being, but neither is Yue. We're both your creations."

 

Clow Reed rolled his eyes heavenward. He searched to find the right words of reassurance. He was more than a little uncomfortable with this topic. "I made you to be a companion, a friend, someone that I could rely on. You are all those things to me. When I made Yue…," the magician reluctantly confided, "there was… he was… his beauty figured into his making a little more strongly… and I made him to reflect me…". Clow stumbled over his words; there was just no way to put it that didn't sound bad. He looked back down at the lion's face and was surprised to find that his companion, confidant, and friend was looking at him with open disgust.

 

"So I'm your pet and Yue's your doll?"

 

Horror stopped the sorcerer's mouth. He was stricken dumb while Keroberos stood up, but Clow found his voice again before the winged lion launched into the air. "WAIT!" He jumped to his feet himself. "When I created you, it was as if you had already existed, and I just gave you form. You are individuals to me, not like children, and not like dolls or pets. I care for you as equals!" he gasped out.

 

Keroberos paused his leap and looked at his Master. Clow Reed looked sincerely worried and slightly deranged. Keroberos considered his mighty self and decided that he would not want such a terrifying beast mad at him, either. He flexed his wings, and let the magician sweat a minute longer.

 

"Yue says that we existed in your mind," the lion conceded.

 

"I didn't have the power or skill to make you, for a very long time. And I don't think that I could make another, now, if I wanted to. Not like you, either of you."

 

Keroberos coolly considered his maker's words. "Why mess with perfection?" he stated at last with a shrug.

 

Clow Reed slumped back against the tree again and exhaled with relief. He closed his eyes. "I truly am in love with Yue, my friend. I'm not going to hurt him," he sighed.

 

The beast frowned, though he was past his anger. "I'll remember that," he warned.

 

"Why are you having so much trouble believing me?" Clow asked with exasperation. "What have I done that makes you think I'm insincere?"

 

Sitting back on his haunches, Keroberos looked directly at the sorcerer and raised his brows. He huffed. This was more thinking than he really liked to do. "We're not in a city anymore. We're a half-day's travel from other people," he said. "And Yue is conveniently close."

 

Nausea crossed the magician's face, threatening an unpleasant return of breakfast. "I am not that cold," he said from a tight throat. He massaged his temples, his face pained. "It hurts me that you could think that."

 

Keroberos raised himself onto his hind legs. He placed a forefoot, claws lightly out, against his maker's chest. "I didn't, really," he said. "Not really."

 

"You have a way," said the sorcerer in a shaky voice, "of making me turn a mirror on myself, Keroberos." He took in a deep breath. "Alright," he said. "I've been properly warned."

 

"All right," agreed the winged lion.

 

. . .

 

For a while after Keroberos left him alone, Clow sat under the trees and considered his companion’s words. Keroberos his pet… what an impossible thought. He had shaped the idea of his oldest companion with the strength and power of his father in mind. In Keroberos, Clow replaced his father’s sternness with kindness, his severity with compassion, his adherence to rules with a sense of humor. His father had followed Clow’s mother to the grave only months after his mother’s death, and thoughts of his parents had mixed deeply with the spell of creation.

 

He should have made Yue immediately afterward, but he had not been able until after a return to China. Being in proximity to his Li relatives spurred him on. The balancing Card – being a single card of negative energy to balance out the many positive energy Clow Cards -- had grown too strong. The Clow Cards needed a structure stronger than the yin/yang and Light/Dark dynamic for greater stability. Clow needed a personification of the moon to be a counterpart to Keroberos’ sun.

 

Clow’s companions were of a different nature than the Clow Cards and different still from the pair of mokona, Soel and Larg, that the sorcerer had created some time ago with the Witch of Dimension. He had to admit to himself that those mokona _were_ a bit like dolls – toys, really – with personalities only a little more complex than his Clow Cards, but they had been created for a specific need in a future time. No, Keroberos and Yue were very different, even if it could be argued that they were spirits under contract, as the Cards also were.

 

Yue was no doll. He was beautiful, yes, but he had a his own will. Clow smiled to himself, remembering with fondness how Yue had always been willful. He had been born in power, and just as the tethered moon pulls on the tides, Clow’s Moon Guardian had simultaneously displayed a mixture of loyalty to his maker and influence on his master.

 

A vision came to Clow’s mind, then, making him laugh again. He saw how Keroberos’ small form would appear to the little girl who would someday be the new master of the Clow. He had not considered before any similarity to the “Roosevelt bear” dolls that were popular in America. By Sakura’s time, the design would be made cuter, with a bigger head and softer body. “You are no one’s pet, but you will be _her_ doll, my friend,” Clow chuckled, amused at the future he could see. His mood was much improved.

 

. . .

 


	8. Study

# Study

 

Yue could not concentrate on the paragraph. He read Flaubert's words one more time, whispering the liquid prose to himself, but again he lost interest. Yue picked the book and himself up from his bed and paced across the room. _Madame Bovary_ had been so lurid and intriguing the first time, and second time as well, but today he could not keep his mind on the story. He put the book down on the windowsill and looked outside at the blue sky dotted with purely white clouds. Today would be a good day for flying, if he were inclined. Looking out at the sky, he wasn't thinking about flying.

 

What he was thinking about was far more lurid than _Madame Bovary_. He began pacing his room again. Clow was certainly working in his study, and Yue had never trespassed on his Master's work. The woven matting of the floor whispered under Yue's bare feet. He could only keep one thought in his mind for any length of time: he needed Clow. Yue bit his lip. He was ashamed of himself, embarrassed by this desire that made his blood feel as though it were boiling. He stopped in front of his mirror, checked his hair and straightened his clothes. He stretched out his wings, twitching until the feathers smoothed out elegantly. Then he took a breath, briefly closed his eyes, opened his bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway.

 

The house was quiet. Thankful that his counterpart was out of sight, Yue slipped quietly down the hall to the study. He hesitated at the door before turning the cold knob. It felt like ice in his hand. When the door was open, he took a single step inside.

 

Clow was at his desk, pen in hand, bent over a journal whose pages were nearly full. He looked up at Yue's entrance, his eyes taking a moment to focus from the ink-filled pages to the farther distance. "Can I bother you?" asked Yue, closing the door behind him silently but for the soft mechanical click.

 

"Always," said the magician instantly. He blotted the fresh ink on the journal in front of him and rested the pen in the groove between pages. "What is on your mind?" he asked, pushing his chair back from the desk.

 

Yue walked toward the desk, then around it to stand near Clow's chair. "I wanted some company," he said. His voice was almost steady.

 

A contemplative grin revealed Clow's teeth. "What kind of company?" he asked.

 

Yue offered back a shy, closed-lipped smile. He slipped into the space between the desk and Clow's chair, then raised his eyes to the sorcerer's. "Your company," Yue answered, already slightly breathless.

 

Clow licked his lips, just a small gesture of tongue passing speculatively, and Yue saw his look change. The sorcerer's brown eyes smoldered behind the veil of his glasses. "I see," said Clow. He took both of Yue's hands and pulled the winged man forward. To keep from falling into Clow, Yue kneeled on the edge of the armchair, his knees straddling Clow's knees. Clow's hands traveled further up Yue's arms with a light grip until they reached past Yue's elbows. There, they reaffirmed their hold, and Clow pulled Yue down further.

 

Yue's fingers rested on Clow's shoulders while his lips explored Clow's mouth. Clow's hands moved again, progressing from the tender spots just beneath Yue's wings, past his waist, until they rested intimately on the curve between thigh and buttock. Fingers sliding between Yue's legs, the sorcerer pressed the loose clothing around the contours of Yue's muscular legs. Yue opened his lips to sigh, and Clow's tongue filled his mouth more deeply. In place of the sigh, a tiny moan escaped.

 

Clow moved a hand around to slip between their two bodies, and from the front, reached between Yue's legs with an insistent caress. Yue pushed away from the kiss but not from the touch; he kept his eyes closed, and whimpered and moaned at Clow's slow ministrations.

 

"Your noises," Clow told him in a husky voice, "could drive me to madness."

 

Yue peeked at him from heavy-lidded eyes. "It feels better than being quiet," he panted. He leaned in again and kissed Clow's wet upper lip.

 

"I like them," Clow assured him. "You could be louder."

 

"We'd be heard," Yue worried.

 

"Do you care?" Clow asked. He moved his hand again, back to mirror the other, massaging Yue's thighs.

 

"Oh… don't stop," Yue complained, making Clow chuckle deeply.

 

"Have you been waiting for me?" whispered Clow.

 

Yue whispered back, tickling Clow's ear. "All morning. Since yesterday. You didn't come to me last night," he cataloged in a disappointed voice.

 

Clow's hands wandered everywhere within his reach. "You were in your room," he defended. "I thought that you wanted privacy."

 

"I wanted you," said Yue, fixing his mouth again to Clow's. Clow moved away from him just enough to free the obstruction of his glasses, his lips and tongue still darting to Yue's. He tried to place the frames on the desk, but the spectacles dropped somewhere on the floor instead, short of their mark. He began peeling away the extraneous layers of Yue's clothing, that another obstruction to closeness, starting with the shawl-like drape and the coat of crisp silk. Without haste and almost business-like, the magician unbuttoned the decorative frog knots and worked at loosening the sash. Yue helped only by moving his hands from their placement on the plush chair back long enough for Clow to pull the coat off. His wings flickered out of existence. The coat slithered past their feet, into the space under the desk.

 

Yue let himself be undressed, breathing heavily. He continued kissing Clow as a distraction from thinking about the way his layers were falling away. Clow was still fully dressed; he didn't even pause from disrobing Yue to remove his own heavy, decorative outer robe. The collared shirt was open now, and the magician's slightly rough hands moved against Yue's smooth bare skin, thumbs across his belly and fingers against his ribs.

 

"Clow…," Yue asked finally, "should I be…?" He finished his question with a soft tug on the sorcerer's clothing.

 

Sliding his warm hands up across Yue's chest and over Yue's shoulders, Clow pulled off the soft shirt. It fluttered to the floor, one more layer to the pile of light colors strewn around the armchair. "This isn't really about me," said the magician lightly while resting his hands for a moment on Yue's slim hips. He fixed his paramour with a look of piercing sincerity.

 

"I don't know what you mean," said Yue, a small frown creasing his forehead.

 

Clow smiled very softly. "Tell me what you want," he said simply.

 

Yue blinked in uncertainty. "I don't know," he said, feeling naïve and wanting. If this was some kind of test, he felt that he was failing it. It wasn't a feeling that he could call familiar.

 

"You won't mind if I guess, then," said Clow with another tooth-revealing grin. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of both the pants and their closer-fitting under layer and pushed them down past Yue's knees until they fell over Yue's feet, the clothing pulled down by its own weight. Clow brought his hands back up slowly, tickling over Yue's skin and making Yue squirm. "Bring your wings back," the sorcerer cajoled when his hands reached Yue's shoulder blades. Yue obliged, and the feathers brushed against the magician's fingers. Both men shivered. "You are," Clow said, moving his lips from Yue's face to Yue's collarbone and kissing against the skin softly, "…exquisite".

 

He began to slide under Yue, marking his descending path with his kisses against Yue's chest. Yue breathed with forced control while Clow's tongue licked out at each nipple in turn, a brief greeting and farewell before continuing further down Yue's skin. When Clow began moving his mouth against Yue's ribs, teeth scraping softly over skin, Yue began to wonder at Clow's intentions. At Clow's insistence, Yue raised himself and leaned more forward, and gripped the back of the armchair.

 

Clow was biting playfully at Yue's belly next, but not for long. There was a small split in the skin of Clow's lower lip, and Yue could feel its slight roughness touch him where no lips ever had. Clow's mouth surrounded swollen flesh, sliding with excruciating slowness from tip to base, and back off again with a sucking pull. Yue moaned and gasped; he moved into the position that Clow wanted him, still bent forward but with his knees against the chair's edge. Clow's knees were between Yue's feet. Clow's mouth was hot and wet, and his tongue moved with muscular hardness while he suckled.

 

With strong hands against Yue's hips, Clow pushed him away until Yue was standing, and then pushed him back further to lean lightly against the desktop. The sorcerer slid his lips away completely and began to lick. His tongue passed in long strokes over Yue's rigid length, and then probed into the silver mass at its base.

 

Yue's legs were shaking when Clow pushed the them wider apart. Through scarcely open lashes, Yue watched Clow reaching, with his tongue, more deeply into the apex formed by his parted legs. The tip quested into places that Yue had never imagined a tongue would want to go, making Yue jolt at the sensation. He pushed at Clow's hair to move him back to an earlier placement of mouth-and-tongue.

 

Clow tipped his head up and gave Yue a wry look. "Now can you tell me what you want?" he asked, licking his lips.

 

"More," said Yue. "Take me in your mouth again."

 

The sorcerer smiled seductively. Again, he took Yue's hands in his own, and placed Yue's hands against his own hair. Yue dug his fingers into the black silk strands. With a light chuckle, Clow returned to the act of fellatio.

 

Yue pulled at Clow's hair; he dug his fingers in more deeply. The handholds felt good when he started to match Clow's sliding rhythm with gentle thrusts of his hips. As his need for release grew more demanding, he pulled Clow's mouth down harder. When Yue first did this, Clow moaned, and Clow's fingers, resting on the back of Yue's sweaty thighs, grasped his legs strongly.

 

Yue's wings fanned out around their two bodies, fluttering; they reflected his shuddering agitation. He watched Clow with closely lidded eyes, until the final moment, when his fluids filled his lover's mouth, spilling past chafed lips. Clow licked at what spilled, and wiped the rest of with the square of linen from his pocket. Yue slumped against the desk, his trembling legs bending slightly at the knee. Clow sat back on the floor, pushing the armchair further away with his back, and regarded Yue.

 

"Is that what you came for?" the sorcerer asked coyly.

 

Yue's answering laugh was light and shaky. "A lot more, really," he said. "That was a lot more." He dropped to his own knees so that he and his lover were at the same level. He looked at Clow with dream-cloudy eyes. "Will you let me do that to you?"

 

Clow nodded. "I'm looking forward to it. Do you want to know what you taste like?" he asked, still with his ever-present soft smile.

 

"Yes," said Yue, feeling wicked.

 

"Then kiss me," said Clow.

 

. . .

 


	9. Chamomile

# Chamomile

 

"I think I've made a mistake," said Clow, in tones of amused regret. "This oil is infused with chamomile. I can hardly keep my eyes open."

 

Yue nuzzled the sorcerer's cheek. "If you fall asleep, should I have my way with you?" he teased in a murmur.

 

"Please do," answered Clow.

 

Yue rested his hand on Clow's chest. As Clow peacefully fell asleep, Yue's mind laid out the events since he had accepted this last invitation to Clow's bedroom. His body hummed with satisfied pleasure, but his mind reviewed the details. He had things to think about.

 

Clow had been taking him slowly from one level of intimacy to another; Yue was aware that after a few repetitions, Clow would nudge him to do some new thing. So far, Yue had been accepting of the pace. He hadn't known anything of lovemaking; though he had read de Sade and others and knew a few things about sex, communing physically with someone he loved was a field beyond his ken. Clow was leading him, and that was as it should be: master and pupil. At least on the surface, that is how it seemed.

 

. . .

 

Yue was sleeping in his bedroom when he was awakened by a touch, warm on the blanket over his hip. He opened his eyes to see Clow sitting on the edge of his bed, the sorcerer's hand resting chastely on the blanket. He blinked himself more fully awake and rolled onto his back.

 

"I'm just going to bed," said Clow. "I didn't mean to wake you."

 

"I don't mind," Yue answered, his voice velvety with sleep. Clow frequently stayed up later in the evenings than Yue did. He had been drawing when Yue had bid him goodnight earlier. Seeing him again before morning, Yue thought, was more pleasant than a dream.

 

Clow leaned in with the intention of placing a kiss on Yue's forehead, but Yue intercepted him to catch the kiss on his lips instead. Yue reclined again, and Clow followed him down the rest of the way. Stretching over Yue's body, he settled into a gentle sharing of kisses.

 

Clow's weight over him was blissful to Yue. The blanket, and Clow's robes, were hardly a barrier against feeling the contours that were growing ever more familiar. He slipped his hands under the sorcerer's outer robe and rubbed hard against Clow's back, then further upward to massage Clow's shoulders.

 

"That feels especially good," said Clow.

 

"Do you want a massage?" offered Yue. "I haven't given you one in while."

 

"If you'll let me return the favor," answered Clow. "You know what will happen once you put your hands all over me."

 

Yue's sigh was filled with contentment. "You have good hands, too," he complimented.

 

For a few minutes, Clow simply stared into his lover's eyes. Yue blinked away the lingering haze of sleepiness and enjoyed the communion, silently, though he continued to run his fingers over Clow's back, seeking the knotted areas.

 

"Do you have any oil?" asked Yue. "I would like to work some of these out." He put pressure on a muscle in the sorcerer's lower back, making Clow groan.

 

"In my room," Clow answered, "somewhere." He rubbed his toes against Yue's feet where they were uncovered by the blanket. Even in sleep, Yue preferred to keep his feet bare. "But I don't want to move just yet."

 

"Are you aware," Yue queried after a few moments, "that I'm not wearing anything under this blanket?"

 

Clow smiled wickedly. "I know how you sleep," he answered.

 

Yue let his hands wander up further, and pressed against Clow's chest so that he could reach the ribbon that tied Clow's hair. "It doesn't seem very fair," Yue observed as he pulled the knot loose.

 

"Perhaps you should correct that," said Clow.

 

The heavily embroidered robe rustled when Yue pulled it off, but Clow had to cast it over the side of the bed to get it out of the way. They continued kissing while Yue stripped the sorcerer's layers, laughing because they were both reluctant to move their bodies out of contact while doing the undressing. Trying to maintain body contact while minimally lifting one part or another led to an intimate kind of rubbing; by the time that Clow was completely undressed, they were both breathing harder than the small movements merited. Clow clawed the blanket out from between their bodies with an unrestrained desperation.

 

Since the change in their relationship, they had not been completely naked against each other before this moment. Clow's body was feverishly hot, tacky with perspiration against Yue's cooler, smoother skin. They bathed together often enough that Clow's body was visually familiar. Clow had a light, soft growth of hair on his chest and his legs, and more in other places, but touching Clow's body like this, Yue realized that it was one thing to know what someone looked like, and something completely different to know what that person felt like. The down on Yue's body was powdery-soft and almost too pale to be seen. The hair on Clow's body only slightly thicker; his skin still felt smooth.

 

Pressing against each other, their bodies were mutually responsive. Yue whimpered, his desire sharp but unspecific. Still unwilling to separate, even to advance their pleasure, they rubbed against one another, muscles flexing, legs tangled, each pulling the other's body in a fierce embrace. Their points of contact were becoming slick with heat and sweat. Clow rolled their united forms over so that Yue was in the position above, but even his wings, hastily given form, could not cool their joint heat.

 

They finally solved their needs with a twist of their bodies, applying to each other the lesson that Yue had learned in Clow's study. Their releases were less than perfectly timed, but Yue dutifully finished his part even while his body was shuddering with the aftermath. Lifting his head, he sat up and back until his wings touched the footboard. Clow shuffled himself to rest his head in Yue's damp lap.

 

"Always something new," Yue murmured while petting Clow's hair.

 

Clow made a sound that was something between a growl and a chuckle.

 

"Do you still want that massage?"

 

"In a minute," answered Clow.

 

Throwing on only the last layer and letting the robe cover him loosely, Clow gathered up the rest of his scattered apparel. He looked at the pile in his arms. "I'm going to take to wearing a yukata," he vowed jokingly.

 

Yue brought his legs over the bed's edge. "You would be cheating me out of the pleasure of peeling you layer by layer," he pointed out.

 

"I hope to never be guilty of depriving you of anything," Clow answered fondly.

 

Yue leaned back on one arm, and with the other, casually formed a few shards of crystal in his hand. They gleamed, wickedly sharp, like sapphire daggers. "I hope you never do," he warned, struggling to keep a dangerous expression on his face. Failing, he dismissed the magic with a self-deprecating laugh. Clow observed him with a measuring look, and it made Yue suddenly shy. He used another aspect of his magic to surround himself with moonlight and create the same kimono that he had worn on the steamship _China_ , in Clow's cabin.

 

Clow smiled with recognition. "If you let me braid your hair again, we can play-act that things went differently," Clow proposed, taking on a seductive contemplation.

 

Yue rose and tossed back his hair. "Maybe some other time," he replied dryly. He took Clow's bundle from the sorcerer.

 

"Time for our change of venue," said Clow, opening the door and leading the way into the corridor. Between the two rooms, he stopped Yue and kissed him secretively. Yue pulled away, his head whipping around to ascertain that they were unseen. He cast the sorcerer a look of reprimand. Clow answered with a defiant smile.

 

Following the magician into his room, Yue looked around while Clow searched a crowded cabinet for the massage oil. "Your bed is too soft for this," Yue observed. "We'll need something for the floor."

 

"Just use my coverlet," answered Clow. He opened a clay bottle and sniffed the contents, then muttered, "too strong." Investigating a second container, he asked, "Lavender or sandalwood, Yue?"

 

"Lavender is more relaxing," Yue replied, frowning at the coverlet as he spread it, doubled, across the floor. "Clow, the oil will stain the silk."

 

"I think I can get it clean," Clow retorted with heavy irony in his tone.

 

"But why stain it to begin with?" countered Yue. He looked in a drawer until he found a plain bed sheet, and then spread the linen over the colorful silk comforter. He took the container of oil that Clow proffered, and then gestured with a sweeping arm for the sorcerer to recline. Clow dropped off his robe and stretched out, face down, onto the light padding.

 

The oil was thick with the smell of herbs in addition to lavender. Blended with the base of almond oil, it cast a heady scent. The infusion pooled in Yue's hands, warming slowly. Tipping his palm, Yue let the oil dribble onto Clow's back and then began spreading it lightly over the surface of Clow's skin. His touch was at first weightless, but once the medium lay evenly spread, Yue began to put his weight behind the pressure of his hands.

 

"Tell me if I'm hurting you," Yue advised as the knotted muscles began to slowly release.

 

"It's not like normal pain," murmured Clow.

 

"It shouldn't be," said Yue. "But I have only learned by example. I don't want to do the wrong thing." He applied pressure outward from Clow's spine, following the lay of each band of muscle. Clow was relaxing evenly under Yue's ministrations. He continued beyond Clow's back, warming and applying more oil as it absorbed into the skin. When he reached Clow's feet, where the magician pulled away with ticklishness, he reversed direction and traveled up to Clow's shoulders again. To get a better angle, Yue kneeled with Clow between his legs. His thighs, inevitably, picked up a companionable sheen of oil.

 

He massaged Clow's arms, all the way to his hands. The sorcerer's hands were meaty and strong and made Yue's hands against them seem finer. He rubbed oil into Clow's uneven fingernails. Their ends were broken, sometimes rough; Clow paid little attention to the damage he did to his own hands. Yet despite their appearance, the magician's fingers were agile.

 

Yue's fingers were agile, too, and strong. He was effectively removing all tension from Clow's body with his touch. When he removed himself from his place above Clow, the sorcerer complained with a lazy protest.

 

"You need to roll over so that I can get your other side," Yue explained, his own voice a murmuring rumble. While Clow obeyed, Yue removed his kimono and let it return to particles of light. It was in the way, he did not need it, and the modesty was inappropriate.

 

It was much more difficult to massage Clow's front without tickling. Yue was beginning to tire, and his touches became lighter. Pressure had lightened to caresses, but Clow did not seem to mind. Finally, Yue simply lay down, chest to chest with his lover, and rested his cheek against Clow's neck. With a single kiss, the moment changed.

 

The oil on Clow's skin gradually transferred to Yue's skin with slippery affection, but the transfer wasn't enough for Clow. He released an arm from being wrapped around Yue to reach the oil flask; while Yue looked at him questioningly, he poured a generous quantity into his own hands, and then began to spread it over Yue's skin in an excessive and slick layer.

 

. . .

 

Yue rose from Clow's bed, slipping away from the scent of warmed almond and herbs. He stepped quietly across the floor and headed into Clow's washroom; to hide the sounds of water, he pushed the door so that it was nearly closed, the lock only resting against the doorjamb. He turned on the tap, and using the bar of castile soap, began to wash the oil and everything else from his hands.

 

He looked up at himself in the mirror while one hand massaged the other. Scrubbing along the nail beds and rubbing the lines of his palms, he cleansed himself from fingertip to wrist. When his hands were clean, he used them to smooth out his hair, combing through with his fingers, taming the straying locks. In the mirror, he thought he looked pristine. His coloring was pure -- everything white and silver. His eyes looked clear and innocent still. He in the glass, perfectly made, was as untouchable as the moon.

 

He quietly turned away from his reflection and returned to the bedroom. Clow had his face against the pillows, with his body stretched out like a sleeping Cupid. He had lost his tan, and his skin, though not as fair as Yue's, was pale, especially in contrast to the richly colored sheets. The bruises along his collarbone and on his neck stood out noticeably. Clow's hair spilled over the pillow and behind him; it was as glossy as the silk bedding, thick and black: the sorcerer's favorite color. Yue returned to his place beside him.

 

He watched the rise and fall of Clow's breathing. Clow was in a deep sleep now, unmoving except for the even breaths. His skin was soft when Yue touched him lightly. The oil had absorbed in; it left his skin with a glowing shine but not slick to the touch. While his eyes savored the sight and his thoughts wandered, Yue breathed in the sleepy scent of chamomile and lavender.

 

. . .

 

Yue felt the finger slip in, and retained an outward calm. There was so much oil on Clow's hands, as there was on his own, that no friction slowed the entry. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was, in its own way, terrifying. "Don't," he said to Clow, a small exclamation lost in heavy breathing.

 

Clow removed his hand. "Did I hurt you?" Clow asked softly.

 

"No," Yue murmured, shaking his head. Loose strands of his hair stuck to him and to his lover equally. "No." He held onto Clow without moving. "Is that something… should I find that pleasurable?" he managed to ask.

 

"I do," Clow whispered in his ear.

 

Yue slowly dropped his hand down, his thumb tracing Clow's spine, until his fingers found Clow's opening. The angle was wrong. Taking Yue's wrist, Clow moved Yue's hand so that he could reach between Clow's legs; that angle was better. They were reclined on their sides and face to face, although to reach, Yue had to slide down to where his head was against Clow's chest. They shifted slightly, and Clow's leg wrapped over Yue's hip.

 

Clow entreated him for a second finger to join the first, and murmured words of instruction. His breath drew in sharply when Yue found the internal pressure point. The right combination of movements elicited sounds of pleasure from Clow, but Yue was still uncertain of himself. After a while, despite Clow's pleasure, Yue pulled his fingers out completely, and began to sit up.

 

Clow caught Yue up with a deep kiss of gratitude. "Let's move off the floor," he suggested, and put words into action. He stood by the bed, where Yue had followed, and pulled Yue close to him, their well-oiled bodies sliding. Kissing Yue again first, Clow looked into Yue's eyes. "I want to be your catamite," he said in a voice that was even and sincere.

 

Involuntarily and just slightly, Yue pulled away. "Not… yet," answered Yue, compromising between wanting to please Clow and his own reluctance.

 

A shadow of disappointment crossed Clow's expression. "I don't want to wait," he said hopefully. When Yue's answer was silence, the magician sighed. "Yue," he said, climbing onto the silk sheets on the mattress and pulling Yue to follow him, "come up here with me."

 

Once on the yielding surface, with his lover's insistence to progress abated, Yue found a resurgence of desire. Though Yue's lips were already sore and tender, he did not want to stop kissing Clow, on the mouth or on the rest of his body. Clow cajoled and entreated until Yue returned to penetrating Clow with his slim and agile fingers, but the sorcerer's entreaties continued, becoming pleas and outright begging that Yue had to deny. Clow seemed to be provoking his bedmate into vocal refusal; the words and declarations that he used were crude and shocking.

 

Yue began to feel a mix of resentment and anger blending with his reluctance and shyness, and the anger was dominating. He became rougher with Clow, eager to finish him and push him away. Clow lay back after his climax and chuckled softly while looking at Yue with an intense satisfaction, and something like admiration. Yue moved slightly further from him by sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

 

"Is this the way you are," Yue questioned, "with your lovers?" He looked down at the space between them, knowing that the question was bold. "With men?" he clarified, being that much bolder.

 

Clow answered evenly, unbothered. "It depends on whom I am with," he explained. "Every lover has been different. I like it both ways," he laughed. His tone softened. "With you, I like to be submissive."

 

"Why?" asked Yue. His retort came out more sharply than he had intended.

 

Clow sat up and rested against the headboard beside Yue. He pushed his loose hair away from his face and looked at Yue, who still had his eyes averted. "I feel safe with you," Clow said. "I can trust you. I can give up all my power, and exist only to please your demands. Or accept your punishment when I do not." He continued to look at his lover, wanting Yue to meet his gaze. "More than with anyone else," Clow added.

 

"It feels strange," Yue admitted. His eyes wandered along Clow's body, then past his feet to stare across the room. "I don't know what to think."

 

Clow smiled. "Don't think," he said.

 

Yue turned his head sharply upward and looked directly at Clow at last. His brow creased. He found himself at a loss for what to say.

 

Clow wondered if Yue knew how enticing he looked when he was peevish. Yue's eyes sparked in a way that warmed Clow from within, and the way Yue's lips thinned made Clow want to soften them again with kisses. Yue was so rarely cross with him; Clow reflected that he found the situation stimulating. He leaned into Yue and kissed him on the lips, and Yue's lips were coldly unyielding.

 

Clow chuckled as he swung his leg around Yue and straddled over him. "Am I in trouble?" he asked in a murmur.

 

"Possibly," said Yue, sharply.

 

Clow rubbed his nose along Yue's neck, and Yue shivered in answer. He brought his own lips to Clow's neck and placed a few brief kisses there. As Clow continued to nuzzle him, Yue's annoyance peaked; he brought his teeth down at the sorcerer's collarbone and bit. He bit harder when Clow began to moan -- not in pain but in pleasure -- stopping just before he might taste blood. When he pulled away, he moved to catch Clow's mouth at the same moment that Clow was moving to him. Their teeth tapped against each other's with the ferocity of their kiss.

 

. . .

 

On the quiet bed, in the quiet of the night that would become morning in a few short hours, Yue stretched himself out behind Clow, wanting and not wanting to wake him. He rested his cheek against the sorcerer's shoulder blade, so that Clow's dark hair and Yue's light hair swirled together like yin and yang. His fingertips touched lightly at the bruised skin, and he felt a welling remorse. "I'm not ready for this, Clow," Yue said softly to his lover's back. "I'm afraid to be this way with you." While Clow's breathing continued smoothly without interruption, Yue stroked his hand over Clow's sleeping form. "You are supposed to be the master." His fingernails glided over the magician's side. "I don't know how to see you differently." He stopped with his hand at Clow's waist, and then reached forward to softly embrace his lover. "If this is what you made me for, what if I can't be what you want?" he said, sighing, and pulled himself to Clow more closely.

 

. . .

 


	10. Fulcrum & Counterbalance

# Fulcrum & Counterbalance

 

Clow watched Yue place their order with the hostess. Yue's Japanese had that newly-learned quality, and he used the forms of extreme politeness, but his manner, elegant and sincere, suited him. It fit him as well as the western-style suit that Yue wore, a match to Clow's own. The hostess seemed to think so too, because she had a somewhat dazzled expression behind her restrained smile. She bowed and left to prepare their tea.

 

Staring at Yue, Clow leaned forward just slightly and dropped his voice. "I'm going to ravish you when we get home," he murmured, using English.

 

Yue's eyes widened. "Clow," he scolded, "we are not the only ones here who may understand English." His admonishment was clipped and quiet. He also glanced meaningfully at the leather bag that contained Keroberos.

 

Clow leaned back, never ceasing his gazing assessment of his companion. The magician switched to Dutch. "Maybe I should list my intentions in detail," he teased in the same coy murmur.

 

Yue frowned and looked away from his Master. It was a certainty that many of the other teahouse patrons were fluent Dutch speakers, even the ones that were not of Dutch origin. After Japanese, it was the main language of business in Tokyo. "If you continue," he warned, again using his first language, "I will wait for you outside."

 

Clow laughed under his breath and straightened his posture. Their tea arrived, along with a small assortment of delicacies. Clow could never drink tea, black or green, without some kind of sweets at hand; whether it was scones or sweet bean cake hardly mattered. Though Yue refrained from eating or drinking anything, Clow did not have to enjoy the repast alone. The sorcerer's adept slight-of-hand kept anyone from noticing that Yue's teacup disappeared into the satchel and returned empty several times, and when they left, not a morsel remained on the dishes.

 

Yue was still angry on the return home. The comfortable brougham that the sorcerer had Created -- a conveyance drawn by exceptionally fast "horses"-- remained silent within. Keroberos had fallen asleep halfway through the journey, taking all conversation with him. Yue sat next to Clow, looking wordlessly out the window. He could feel Clow's eyes on him. He felt petty and selfish for not talking to Clow, yet the only topics he could think to start with were comments on the weather, which lacked any kind of intimacy, or a discussion of Clow's exhibitionist behavior, which was far more intimate than Yue's mood could accept. Instead, he simply looked out at the passing farmland and let his mind go blank, listening to his sibling's soft snores.

 

He felt a weightless touch on his hands: Clow's fingertips on his own, just that and no more. Yue let it rest there, wondering what Clow would do. Nothing happened for many long minutes, until Yue turned away from the window and toward Clow. Yue's eyes adjusted to the darker interior. Clow was looking at him with an expression that was expectant, hopeful, and, oddly shy. The magician smiled a small smile.

 

Yue turned back away, glanced out at the passing landscape, glanced back in at his sleeping brother, and finally looked directly at Clow. Clow wordlessly placed his other hand on Yue's vest at the waist, but first, he removed his glasses. The clicking sound of the frames folding together gave Yue a tremor of anticipation that he could not quell. He put his hand on Clow's shoulder, and both men leaned quietly into each other to share a kiss.

 

Yue accepted the touch of lips, giving no more than his acquiescence. Clow's kiss was restrained, only mildly damp, warm but not passionate. It was different than Yue had expected; it was tender and undemanding, not the preamble to something more, but a moment unto itself. When Clow moved off of his lips, Yue chased his mouth and returned the butterfly kiss. They passed the kiss back and forth, like sharing a chalice of wine, until Clow rested both hands on Yue's shoulders and stopped the exchange. He removed Sleep from the Deck and whispered to her; she obligingly zipped over to Keroberos and cheerfully dusted him with her glittering spell. She then curled up against his velvet ear, giving him a refreshing sprinkle every few minutes.

 

Yue shook his head at the sorcerer, and Clow smiled back sheepishly. "He will get even with you when he finds out," Yue said in a hushed voice.

 

"Don't tell him," Clow answered.

 

This time the kiss was longer, though still gently reigned in. Yue's anger had already eased, and now, it melted almost completely. He initiated a more intimate embrace, pulling Clow more deeply into his arms. This was like an echo of their first kiss, Yue thought to himself, enjoying the sweetness. Clow was close and warm but not pressing; his hands remained chastely on Yue's shoulders. Yue slipped one hand up to rest against Clow's neck, where he could feel the racing pulse that was an echo of his own. After a while, he deepened the kiss, and pushed Clow back against the seat bench until their posture was nearly horizontal.

 

They disentangled around the time that the manor came into view. When Yue realized that Sleep had been curiously watching them, he turned away in embarrassment. Clow beckoned her over to him; with a glittering flash she became a Card that the sorcerer placed back with the others. The carriage jolted over an uneven portion of road, and Keroberos woke with a start.

 

"Home already?" he yawned, shaking his doze off with a big shiver.

 

"Here is the front door," said Clow. Their transport stopped. Keroberos bounded out, followed more slowly by his companions.

 

"Plenty of day left," declared the lion, stretching liquidly and beating his wings. "I think I'll make some use of it." He nodded back to Clow. "You should join me. You could use the exercise."

 

"Go on ahead," the magician said with a wink.

 

Keroberos rolled his eyes. "Don't waste the day!" he yelled back as he raced away.

 

Yue flared his wings. "Perhaps I will join him," he said to Clow.

 

The sorcerer made a gesture, but kept his eyes on Yue. Driver, carriage, and horses disappeared, and the second glowing Card fluttered into Clow's hand. "I have a better idea," he said.

 

They walked into the cool dark of the house together, but once inside, Clow walked ahead. He kicked off his boots and socks and proceeded down the hall. Yue bared his own feet, straightened quickly the carelessly tossed footwear, and followed with curiosity. In the kitchen, he found the sorcerer fixing a cold drink, a chilled tisane of lavender and lemon juice. He offered the glass to Yue, and Yue sipped before handing it back. "Extremely sweet," Yue commented.

 

Clow smiled in reply. Happily drinking his liquid confection, he strolled into the breakfast room. Yue trailed behind; he watched Clow drink empty the cut crystal glass and set it down on the sideboard. Condensation pooled into a wet ring. Clow turned to Yue and pulled him gently into his arms.

 

"Oh," Yue said, just as Clow kissed him. His mouth was cold and sugary, with a subtlety of lavender. "Extremely sweet," he murmured while their lips passed over each other.

 

"I can be," Clow murmured in return. This time, his kiss was less restrained and more exploratory. He moved Yue with small steps until Yue was caught between Clow's increasingly hard kisses and the breakfast table. To keep his feathers from damage, Yue hid his wings, letting Clow push him against the table's edge. Clow was no longer only kissing him. Hands rubbed caresses over his clothing in spite of the lack of distance between his and Clow's bodies.

 

He answered Clow's kisses without reluctance. Gradually, he echoed the exploration of Clow's hands as well. Clow's manner became more demanding; it was as if the dam of his restraint had broken and his desire was a surging wave.

 

Yue's breath caught. Clow had him completely pinned against the heavy wooden table now, to the point where Yue's hands behind himself were the only things keeping him somewhat upright, since his balance was gone. In the brief time that Clow's lips released his, he gasped a breath filled with Clow's heated scent. Their closely pressed together hips were Clow's fulcrum as he leaned into Yue; Yue started a breathless protest until Clow shifted his mouth to cover Yue's, successfully stopping his protest. The sensation of warmth and wetness, combined with the insistent pressure of tongue, wiped Yue's mind blank.

 

Clow's hands had already found the tight space between Yue's vest and shirt. The friction of those hands pulled layers up, teasingly exposing small areas of bare skin to Clow's touch. With their legs intertwined, Yue was losing his battle not to end on his back atop the table; with his Master's enticing fondling, he was losing the will not to give in. When Clow's lips released Yue's, moving to the neck beneath Yue's loosened collar, Yue attempted one more protest.

 

"C-Clow…"

 

The magician came up and looked him in the face. "Don't tell me to stop," he said. He sighed when Yue looked away, but he didn't relinquish his position. "What's the matter?" he asked while slipping the suspenders from Yue's shoulders. "Tell me you don't like this," he coaxed, kissing Yue along the chin-line. "Or this." The kisses, moving again to Yue's neck, became nibbles. Clow started releasing the buttons of Yue's shirt and followed the opening cloth with hot lips and more burning kisses. Once the shirt and vest buttons were done, Clow's fingers moved on to trouser buttons.

 

"It's not," Yue gasped, "that I don't like it." He gave in to his battle with gravity in order to free his hands to stop Clow's. The shift in bodies made Clow Reed stumble and have to catch himself against the edge of the table. Once Yue was on his back, he was actually free of the entanglement; he took the momentary advantage to take back his equilibrium. He was solidly back on his feet.

 

Yue was aware that he was flushed, nearly hyper-ventilating, and shaking, while Clow, calmly leaning on the furniture, looked askance at him. "It's not that I don't," he said in a small embarrassed voice, "want it, just…" he glanced to the open door, "…couldn't we be… somewhere more private?"

 

"Are you afraid that Keroberos will walk in on us?" the magician asked with amusement.

 

"Or hear us," Yue murmured. He was slightly annoyed at Clow's smiling.

 

"You've always known when I have wanted privacy," Clow replied.

 

"Yes," replied Yue questioningly.

 

Clow tipped his head. "We won't be interrupted," he assured. He reached for Yue again. "I think this table is just the right height… ."

 

"Stop," said Yue. "Stop pushing me, Clow." He stepped out of reach, then stared downward, at his arms crossed in front of him. He looked up again the silence following his words to see Clow's direct and serious look. Clow was smiling still, but it was not a smile that comforted. Yue looked at his arms again, and sighed. "You know so much about," he made an expressive gesture, "this."

 

Clow's reply was delayed. "You didn't think I was a virgin, did you?" Clow said, attempting levity.

 

"It's not that," said Yue. He searched for the words to explain his feeling. "Why did you make me like this?"

 

Clow moved off the table, standing without leaning. "I don't think this is the time to be having this conversation," Clow said with a shadow of warning.

 

"Okay," said Yue. Then he stood and walked out of the room, through the archway that led into the kitchen.

 

Clow's voice followed. "Why would you ask that?," he called, not loudly but in a way that carried. Then he, himself, followed Yue into kitchen. He leaned against the smaller kitchen table. "Would you rather your first time be with a woman?"

 

His lover shook his head with a hint of anger. "I only want you," answered Yue.

 

"I didn't make you to desire me," said his Master. "Is that what you mean?"

 

"Yes. And… more than that."

 

"I didn't make you that way. You made you this way."

 

Yue looked at his maker, frightened by the mix of exasperation and anger that he was seeing on Clow's face. Yue felt his throat tighten with impending tears, but he did not want them to fall, not now, like this, in front of Clow. "Don't be angry with me," he managed to say.

 

"Yue." Clow started to speak, his voice flat and unwavering at first, but then it shifted, sliding like a hillside into a softer mode. "Come here," he said, and pulled Yue into his chest. Yue hid his face in the crook of Clow's neck. The sorcerer gently rubbed Yue's back while he spoke. "There is nothing wrong."

 

"Say that you love me, Clow," Yue whispered.

 

The magician frowned, but his creation could not see it. "You aren't doubting that I do, are you?"

 

"I just want to hear it," Yue said, his voice catching.

 

Just for a moment, Clow rebelled against the plea. "I love you," he said plainly. "Of course I love you." He kissed Yue's hair. "Do you love me?"

 

"Yes!" exclaimed Yue, shocked at the question.

 

"Then what is the problem?" asked Clow. He waited a long while for Yue's answer.

 

"Let's go up to your room," Yue whispered.

 

Clow stepped away and held him at arm's distance. "I don't think you really mean that," he said. Yue looked at him in surprise; his look was met with Clow's unwavering gaze.

 

Yue considered. Keeping his voice from trembling, he said, in a low voice, "Start walking."

 

A glimmer of amusement pulled at the corners of Clow's lips. He moved slowly backwards into the hall, watching Yue as he backed away. Yue took a stride forward, and Clow's ghost smile turned into a grin. He walked backward deliberately, all the way to the base of the stairs, keeping just ahead of Yue's slow strides. Clow was grinning broadly, and his eyes were twinkling with anticipatory excitement. Masking his inner turmoil, Yue trapped him at the stairs, his chin lifted haughtily, his arms crossed. He snapped his wings open and showed off their full span.

 

"What are you dawdling for," he whispered threateningly.

 

Clow watched Yue's eyes flash, blue and silver, and his own eyes widened. Clow stepped carefully backward again, taking the steps without removing Yue from his view. He was near the top when Yue lifted from the ground in a low hover.

 

"Move," said Yue.

 

Clow ran. Yue, of course, caught up to him.

 

Clow was tossed into the silks as if he weighed as much as one of the eider pillows. He pulled Yue into his arms by grasping Yue's hair and drawing him down. To Clow's disappointment, Yue melted in his arms; he enfolded Clow with tenderness and kissed him gently. The sorcerer kissed back with ardor, trying to provoke Yue's earlier magnificence, but Yue was completely yielding. When that seemed unlikely to change, Clow resigned himself to a gentle loving.

 

They finished undressing each other with care; the clothing disappeared in the covers while the lovers snuggled into the bed sheets. Yue kissed and caressed without teeth or nails, and when Clow asked for rougher play, Yue only shook his head and placed a kiss on Clow's cheek.

 

It was pleasure, but pleasure laden with denial, and not the kind of denial that, perversely, gave Clow pleasure. Yue was quiet throughout their foreplay, and sometimes unresponsive to Clow's whispers. Clow knew that Yue was nervous, possibly fearful, and he considered, for a moment, stopping their lovemaking unfulfilled… but only for a passing moment. This minor marker in their relationship was becoming disproportionate, he thought. It was possible to get past this, let it become unimportant, and afterward, they could move forward.

 

It was, Clow thought afterward, a singularly unfulfilling session. Yue slipped out of him without comment and ran his hands along Clow's back before moving away. Clow brought himself the rest of the way down to the mattress and rolled to his side; Yue lay down and stretched out to face him. Clow looked into his perfect face and mourned at the lack of confidence in Yue's violet eyes.

 

"Did I do all right?" asked Yue uncertainly.

 

"You did fine," said Clow. He stroked Yue's arm distractedly.

 

Yue rested his chin against the back of his hand. "You don't seem," he hesitated, in a soft voice, "satisfied."

 

Clow sighed, smiled, and reached out to rub the back of Yue's neck. "It's fine," he said.

 

Yue dropped his eyes to the patterns he was making with his fingertip on the sheets. All at once, he sat up and rolled upright, sitting for only a moment on the edge of the bed. "I need a bath," he said. "I will draw one for you when I'm done." He cast a quick look back at Clow before walking into the washroom.

 

Clow lay lethargically in bed a while longer before making himself get up and follow Yue. He stretched as he crossed the floor, cool underfoot, and ran his hands through his loose hair. It was a short distance through the washroom to the bathing room beyond, where Yue was kneeling by the deep tub while it filled.

 

"Share your bath with me," Clow said as he sat down on the stone tile, "and I will scrub your back."

 

"You don't have to bathe with me, Clow," Yue said.

 

"I think I do," said Clow. "Because you are acting as if you have done something wrong. And because we both need baths. And I, selfishly, like company when I bathe."

 

The tub was full, so Yue slipped into it feet first. He allowed his hair to become wet as he sank in up to his shoulders. Clow followed him in.

 

"I wanted to be better for you," Yue told him.

 

"Next time," said Clow soothingly. He began to lather soap.

 

"We have filthy habits," said Yue, swishing his hands through the water. His statement was shaded with reluctant amusement. Local custom was to scrub clean before soaking in a bath, rather than to do both in the same vessel.

 

"Allow me the luxury of doing what I cannot do in the public baths," Clow replied. "As much as I like a good soak," he said with a wink, "I like bubbles." With a boyish enthusiasm, he created a thick froth of soap in sponge. He then sloshed through the water to bridge the distance between himself and Yue, carrying the soapy ball above the water level like a trophy. Yue was not in a playful mood, but he let Clow turn him and push his hair aside, and he submitted to the pleasurable, gentle scrubbing across his shoulders.

 

Clow moved the sponge beneath the water's surface, and it effervesced bubbles as the pockets of trapped air within it broke free. "I should be attending you," said Yue softly, though his voice echoed in the tiled room.

 

"You will," said Clow. "Count on me to be selfish."

 

Yue closed his eyes. Clow's touch was innocent over his skin; the air he breathed was filled with soft scent and vapor. The sponge was a utilitarian caress against his neck and chin, behind his ears, across his chest. It was soothing. He thought about how Keroberos liked to be pet, and understood why.

 

After Clow was done, Yue splash-rinsed himself, and then paid Clow back in kind. In this, he felt sure of what he was doing; it was a familiar task. He scrubbed Clow from ears to toes, vigorously and thoroughly. Clow watched with his mild smile while Yue worked, and laughed when Yue tickled him incidentally, and obediently took whatever body positions were necessary. When Yue was done with the washing, he stepped out of the tub and wrapped himself in a towel, only to return and kneel at the tub's edge again to attend Clow's hair.

 

Yue let himself be more affectionate with the washing of his lover's hair. He had a weakness for touching it, now that he could linger over it without the fear of revealing his feelings unwillingly. He ran the fingers of one hand through the heavy hair while ladling the bathwater on to it with the cupped palm of the other hand. He observed the way the tresses flattened with the water's weight. Clow's hair was completely black, black as the feathers of a crow, black as the soot used for sumi-e ink. There was no brown to it; it was almost an unnatural color. There was no silver in it to show his advanced age. Yue had to leave it, reluctantly, to find the hair soap. This soap, smelling of its infusion of mint, lathered less than the castile because it was rich with vegetable fats that would leave the sorcerer's hair as glossy as a polished stone. Clow made this; it was one of the less arcane products of his workroom. He made this soap, the infused oils, and the other balm, which was neither lotion nor cream, but melted with the heat of their bodies in contact.

 

Yue's hands moved slowly, rinsing. It wasn't unpleasant, what Clow wanted him to do. It was, he admitted to himself, an unequaled pleasure for him. Clow's body fought against him when Yue was within his lover, even though Clow encouraged Yue with words, so Yue had to be diligently forceful. It was strange to him. Everything in the bedroom was strange to him, full of pitfalls and situations without precedence. To take the passive position was no solution to him; he didn't desire it, though he would loyally do whatever Clow wanted of him. It was, either way, a dilemma, and Yue could not see a solution.

 

There was nothing to do but continue, Yue thought. Clow was still his Master, and obedience was a simple answer.

. . .

 


	11. Distance

# Distance

 

Clow twisted the thin tobacco pipe back and forth. He put the gold _suikuchi_ to his mouth and blew through the pipe to clear any dust that had gathered in it from disuse. He moved the mouth piece away from his lips again, studied the tiny cracks in the lacquered shank, then pushed aside the pipe’s storage case and leaned back in his chair with his feet up on the table. He tapped the pipe lightly against his leg, his gaze directed out a window and his expression distant.

 

He put the pipe back to his mouth and stretched. He was comfortable in the late morning sun, comfortable wearing nothing but a well-worn dressing gown, his hair pulled off his face with no more care than he ever gave it. Finding the old _kiseru_ had been an accident from a search for something else. The item turned up during a hunt through several trunks and storage chests that were now open and spread around the solarium. He would Move them somewhere out of the way later. Over the years, he had amassed a collection of interesting things, many of which he had forgotten that he possessed.

 

Yue, passing the doorway, stopped at the sight. He wandered in to the solarium. He looked around at the mess and then settled on Clow. “It’s not like you to smoke,” he commented.

 

“I do at times,” Clow responded. He sounded defensive even to himself. Backpedaling, he corrected, “Not for some time, and never often. But on occasion.” He took his feet off the table. Yue had a slight tightness around his mouth that indicated unspoken irritation. Clow could not discern whether the inspiration came from his state of undress or something else he had done wrong in Yue’s eyes.

 

“It seems a strange thing to take up again,” Yue said.

 

Clow smiled. He looked away from his companion and lover. “Not at all.”

 

After a few minutes of standing quietly, Yue departed the room. Clow had wondered during the silence if he should say something to make conversation. He could have pulled Yue into his lap and caused Yue some trouble, at the least.

 

He put the pipe back into its box and snapped the latch closed. It _had_ been a long time since he had smoked tobacco. It had once been very fashionable. However, his _kiseru_ – a gift from an old friend – needed refreshing. The cracks in the decoration on the _rao_ indicated that the tube needed replacing. He had no tobacco to smoke, either.

 

He carried the pipe case up with him to his bedroom. On the way, he saw his Sun Guardian and motioned him to follow.

 

Keroberos trotted into Clow’s room. “Yue says that you pulled out a bunch of old trunks. Did you find anything interesting?” he asked.

 

“It’s all interesting,” Clow answered with mirth. “I want to acquire some things in the city. Would you like to keep me company? We will get dinner while there, of course.

 

Keroberos looked at his maker with mild curiosity. "I thought the whole reason for moving out here was to be alone," the winged lion said. "The food's good in the city, but we've been spending a lot of time traveling."

 

Clow, pacing his room in his loosely tied dressing gown, picked up his suit and then tossed it back across the chair again. "I find myself craving company," the magician admitted distractedly. "Beyond yours and Yue's," he added after hearing himself. "Strangely."

 

Keroberos put his head down on his feet. "To tell the truth, Clow, I'm tired of Tokyo. You try traveling around in a leather bag and trying to stay quiet." His tail smacked against the rug in an agitated motion. "There's plenty to do here."

 

Clow stopped pacing; he leaned against the footboard of his bed. "I may go alone," he said.

 

"Why not take Yue?" asked the lion.

 

"I don't think he gets much enjoyment from it," murmured Clow, as if to himself, "either." Making a decision, he began to dress. "No, I think he might prefer to stay home. You will be better company for each other." He paused, half clothed, and slumped into the chair that didn't contain his suit. "I am not very good company, lately, my friend," he explained with a frustrated sigh.

 

Keroberos rose to his feet and began to leave the room. The sorcerer watched him with an injured surprise that turned to helpless shame when Keroberos spoke. "You promised not to involve me," the winged lion said over his shoulder. "Not with any of them. In this case, that includes Yue. You make your bed, and you sleep in it. I don't want to know anything about who's in it with you." Leaving Clow wordless, the lion padded confidently out of the room.

 

Clow sat unmoving in his chair after his companion left, staring after him. Keroberos was completely in the right; Clow had promised him years ago that the sorcerer's love life would be his own business, and that on that subject he would not expect Keroberos to be a compassionate ear. Nor could Clow discuss such things with Yue. He had never done so in the past, and now, it could not be an objective discussion. It seemed that most of his recent discussion with Yue had a tendency to erode into terse arguments, anyway. Clow wasn't sure how it had happened, but something had shifted out of place badly.

 

No, saying that he didn't know how it had happened was a lie. He avoided the truth in his mind, avoided thoughts like _disappointment_ and _frustration_. Both he and Yue felt it. Their lovemaking was physically satisfying, technically without fault, but still left each of them wanting some elusive something. The building resentment spilled over into all other daily aspects of their household, resulting in meaningless bickering, unfounded annoyance with each other's mannerisms, and, alternately, silence.

 

Still, they spent forced time in each other's company. They took every meal together, where Yue seemed intent on eating the complex dishes that he himself would make. They slept together most nights, falling asleep, embraced, after vigorous sex, but would wake at opposite corners of Clow's bed. Clow had gotten tired of seeing Yue curled at his feet like a cur, and this morning he had had to restrain himself from kicking Yue awake.

 

Clow gave up on dressing, deciding to spend the day at home. Then he again changed his mind, dressed in a hurry, and stalked down the stairs to escape the house.

 

Night had descended by the time Clow reached the city. It proved fortuitous: the _raoya_ that Clow found  offering pipe repair service at the late hour was one of the night folk, and not human. As it turned out, Clow and the _raoya_ had a common acquaintance, and the spirit being offered to pass along the sorcerer’s hello.

 

. . .

 

Weeks later, nothing had changed. In the sun parlor, the three companions shared space without sharing company. Yue sat on the window seat with his knees bent as a book rest, listlessly turning pages every few minutes. He didn't seem, to Keroberos, particularly interested in the book in front of him. Clow was also reading, but very intently, and he sat in a favorite oversized armchair exhibiting careless comfort. Judging from the ancient look of the reading material, Keroberos guessed that the sorcerer had rediscovered an old grimoire or was contemplating some new exercise of magic.

 

Keroberos himself had just woken from a deep nap, taken stretched out at Clow's feet. It had been cold outside this morning, but comfortable in this space warmed by the sunlight through the glass windows. He blinked slowly, savoring the slow waking, but a sudden flash of white outside caught his attention and brought him quickly to full awareness. His muscles tensed as he focused on the shadow and motion that darted near the glass-paned door.

 

"There's someone outside," Keroberos observed aloud. Yue and Clow both looked up from their books at his words; Clow marked his page and walked over to the garden door.

 

"Indeed there is," the magician said. He made a gesture to clear the wards on the door and stepped back. The French doors flew open, banging like gunshot as two small shapes bounded in, bouncing like black and white gumdrops electrified to life.

 

Yue’s gasp disappeared under Keroberos’s shout. “Mokona!” he declared.

 

“Mokona Modoki mo doki doki!” yelled the white invader.

 

“Puu!” his black counterpart shouted merrily.

 

Clow crouched, caught a mokona in the crook of each elbow, and smiled and the little bunny-like creations. "Hello, Mokona Modoki," he said with delight in his voice. “Welcome to my house!”

 

"And the witch?" asked Keroberos, rising to his feet with interest. His tail whipped along the ground, dispersing the last of his hunting tension.

 

"On her way here now," said Clow. “Am I right?”

 

“No!” both mokona laughed.

 

Clow sat back on his heels. He smiled still, but disappointment nevertheless showed in his face. The round-bodied magic creatures snuggled against him a moment longer before bounding out of his embrace to dance around the room.

 

Soel, the White Mokona sang out, “Yuuko wants you to come to OUR house!” He hopped over Keroberos while the lion whipped his head around, trying to track him.

 

“Sleep-over party!” the Black Mokona, Larg, cheered. He jumped into Yue’s lap and winked before bouncing out again. His path made figure eights around Clow and a dismayed Yue.

 

“Games party!”

 

“Singing party!”

 

“Drinking party!”

 

“Falling down party!”

 

At that, both mokona fell on their backs and wiggled their arms and legs wildly. Their cute faces scrunched with giggling.

 

Keroberos looked at his maker. “I guess we should pack?” He didn’t bother to hold back his lopsided grin.

 

Clow conferred with the mokona. In their excited way, they related that the Witch of Dimension, known as Yuuko Ichihara, peer and long-time friend to Clow, offered an invitation to visit her home. The witch did not reside in Clow’s dimension. She dwelled in an alternate Japan, the same in many ways to their own but more richly populated by spirits and monsters. Yuuko was called the Witch of Dimension because of her ability to travel between divergent worlds.

 

The White Mokona, who could transport others between dimensions, would take them all back to Yuuko. While Clow could travel though dimensional tunnels himself, doing so required great concentration and a clear sense of destination, or at least purpose. In comparison, Yuuko and her magic could make the same trip happen with relaxed ease.

 

“A visit with Yuuko sounds like just the thing,” Clow approved.

 

Yue set down his book. "You will accept?" he asked, his voiced shaded with reprimand.

 

"Of course," said Clow evenly.

 

Yue set his book aside and walked quietly toward the magician; he leaned around the side of the armchair and spoke breathily into Clow's ear. "Come upstairs to my room," he invited.

 

Yue waited until he was alone with Clow to begin questioning him. Clow followed Yue up the stairs, and wrapped an arm around Yue's waist while Yue closed the bedroom door. He captured a cold kiss before Yue pulled out of his hold. Yue crossed the room to the window, and Clow lay himself down on Yue's neatly made bed.

 

"You were quick to accept the invitation," Yue said as an opening.

 

"We haven't attended a gala or been otherwise entertained in a long time," Clow offered in explanation. "The distraction might be pleasant."

 

"You feel you need a distraction?" asked Yue in arched tones, turning around to face the magician. "Did you need to look outside my… our company for entertainment?"

 

"I thought that you would be coming along," said Clow smoothly.

 

Yue nearly snarled. "No. You hoped that I would stay." He stared his lover down with eyes both hurt and angry. "You know how I feel about… that woman. Everything she offers has a trick clause. And it's a little unexpected to receive an invitation to her estate suddenly after so much time. I can't even recall when you even last used her name in conversation!" His words shot across the room like loosed arrows.

 

"You're overreacting." Clow stretched back across Yue's bed, presenting an image of relaxed poise.

 

"In what way?" quizzed Yue coldly. "Are you saying that you did not reawaken this acquaintance first?"

 

"Yuuko is more than an acquaintance, Yue," the magician evaded. "But if you feel so strongly, then, by all means, stay here. She will not demand explanation of me as to your absence."

 

"No, it is only I who make the demands," Yue clarified, his words clipped and formal. He turned toward the window again, feeling vulnerable exposing his back towards Clow after such a statement but contrarily wanting the element of danger.

 

Clow lifted himself back up from the bed. "Perhaps some distance would be best for us," he said with annoyance. "We've done nothing but fight."

 

_Since we became lovers_ \- Yue heard the unspoken thought, and flinched at its truth. He had never hurt so much in his life as when he spoke his next words. "Perhaps." Bitterness welled in his voice. "Leave me then. Enjoy yourself." Since he was staring sightlessly out the window, he did not see Clow leave, only heard the hard steps that his lover made as he left the room. Yue turned to catch him with an unformed word, but Clow had already disappeared down the hallway.

 

He considered running after the sorcerer, but his pride stopped him before he had completed three strides. Instead he forced himself to sit on his bed, the spot still warm from Clow's body, and breathed with effort. He pierced the bedding with his nails, clenching the coverlet so fiercely that he tore the weave. Beyond his door, he could hear the voices of Clow and Keroberos echoed, though the words were distorted as their syllables spiraled upward from the ground floor.

 

Keroberos came to find Yue before the lion and the sorcerer left. He leaped onto Yue, who was lying crossways on his bed but awake. The lion set his paws on Yue's shoulders. "Come on. Let's get going," he said with authority.

 

Yue continued to look at the ceiling. "I am staying," he said. He made no effort to move out from under his sibling's feet.

 

"You're not staying. You'd be all by yourself," answered Keroberos. “Those meat bun mokona are kind of fun to be around. Admit it.”

 

Yue sighed and met his brother's eyes. Keroberos stepped off of his shoulders, and Yue pushed himself up. He curled a leg under himself while letting the other dangle off his bed's edge. "He doesn't want me," he stated in a flat voice. He looked past Keroberos, at nothing.

 

The lion cursed sub-audibly. "I'm trying to stay out of this," he grumbled, more to himself than to Yue. "You both are impossible." Louder, he said, "If you stay, I stay."

 

Yue shook his head sharply and stood up, unfolding himself in a quick motion. "Go," he said. "Someone needs to be with him." His voice dropped. "I should be guarding him too. But I can trust that you'll bring him safely back, if he returns."

 

"Of course we're coming back!" said Keroberos with disbelief.

 

"Then I will see you when you come back," said Yue simply, as if he did not care.

 

Keroberos rolled his eyes, shook his head, and, with a huff, trotted toward the door. Clow had been acting unreasonably lately, too. "I hope Crazy isn't catching," he muttered as he launched off the landing and glided down the staircase. “Or a new Clow Card. The Crazy. Yeah, that’s all we would need,” he complained.

 

Clow waited impatiently, occupied in a restless pacing. He looked up sharply when he heard the hushed whisking of his creation's wings; he composed himself when he saw only Keroberos. "He's not coming," said the winged lion grumpily. A frown twitched across Clow's face before being hidden with his customary smile.

 

"Let's be off, then," said the magician.

 

Yue not only heard Clow leave the manor, but he felt him leave this dimension for another. The distance was sudden and absolute. Yue felt suddenly cold as he walked out along the railed hallway, and wrapped himself in his wings. He felt the emptiness of the house. A gasping cry escaped from him; it echoed around the walls like a bird that had gotten trapped indoors.

 

. . .

 


	12. Yuuko Ichihara

 

Clow and Keroberos stepped out of the dimensional doorway  and onto a patio with the mokona bouncing around them. A woman in a beautiful kimono that trailed to the ground around her feet waited to greet them. Keroberos thought that Yuuko Ichihara looked the same as ever, but it had been a long time, and with Clow as a master, Keroberos wasn’t a good judge of ages.

 

"Good evening, Sun Beast," she said. Her initial greeting for Clow was a look that spoke volumes.

 

"Greetings, Witch." Keroberos echoed her playful tone. He stretched to meet her fingers when she reached down to give his chin a scratching.

 

She straightened and looked at her other guest. "Clow," she said.

 

"Yuuko." The sorcerer grinned. "You don't seem to have changed in the slightest. Still lovely in every way." His eyes never broke away from hers, yet he somehow gave the impression that he had looked her over from head to toe and back again, which made a tiny frown line of irritation appear in her otherwise welcoming expression.

 

"Not all changes make their appearance on the outside," she answered. She regained her smile in full. "You seem just the same since we last met, Clow Reed."

 

"Would that it were a more recent event," lamented Clow. "I suppose the distance was rather far."

 

"Some journeys are longer than others," Yuuko replied. She looked from Clow to Keroberos. "No Moon Rabbit? He didn't come with you?"

 

Clow's smile was wooden. "He preferred to stay at home," he said.

 

"Is he still angry with me about that time?" Yuuko did not hold back her merriment. "I did advise him that the price would be commensurate with his wish," she laughed. She turned toward the building's entrance and indicated that her guests should follow. "The girls will be disappointed. They were looking forward to trying out some hairstyle designs for light-colored hair. He might have had another wish in exchange."

 

"I dread to think of what Yue might request, these days," mused Clow softly. He processed the rest that Yuuko had said. "Girls?" he asked.

 

"Yes," Yuuko replied just as a pair of children in European-inspired dress ran to embrace her. "You finally get to meet Marudashi," she put an arm around the blue-haired girl, "and Morodashi," she finished, also hugging the pink-haired girl. "Maru and Moro." She looked at Clow, observing his reaction for approval.

 

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Clow said with a bow to the spirit girls.

 

"Come in and make yourselves comfortable. How long can you stay?"

 

Clow shrugged his answer. "If we don't wear out your hospitality too quickly, at least long enough to become reacquainted."

 

. . .

 

Yue should have felt invigorated by the approach of his hour, when the sky filled the view like a dark ocean and the moon sailed over a foam of stars. He rose from the floor where he had been slouched for hours and drifted to the window of his room. The casement opened easily. A gloom of storm clouds spilled into the afternoon. Their shadow made the night seem to come sooner. The air came in with flame scents of earth and sun overlaid with impending rain's watery promise. Yue leaned against the window frame. The house was so very empty, inside and out.

 

By now, Clow and Keroberos would be... at dinner, maybe. Truth be told, Yue didn't dislike the Dimension Witch. She was a pleasant enough hostess, and she had been as well behaved a guest in the past as could be expected. He was, however, somewhat afraid of her. She was as clever as Clow, and they had a rapport that baffled Yue.

 

Yue gasped at the feeling in his center. He wrapped his arms around himself and held on tightly. Without Clow, without the bright blazing center of Clow's kehai making Yue shine, Yue thought that he would feel invisible, empty inside. Yue did not feel empty. He did not feel empty at all.

. . .

 

Over drunken chicken and warmed Chinese wine, Clow and Yuuko gradually brought each other up to date with tales of their respective lives. They also became gradually and inexorably inebriated. Yuuko was less accustomed to the baiju than her usual sake, but she had chosen the selections of their first meal as a compliment to her guests.

 

The mokona enjoyed the liquor, too, without becoming any less boisterous. Keroberos abstained from the wine, but he dozed over the remnants of steamed dumplings while the mokona pulled at his ears and swung from the tips of his feathered wings. He opened an eye when a current of tobacco smoke started to wend through the air.

 

"Care for a smoke, Clow?" Yuuko asked. She drew a breath from her kiseru.

 

Keroberos rose with a stretch and the mokona still dangling from his wings. "I'm going to heave off to bed," he announced.

 

Maru and Moro flanked him. "We'll show you where you're sleeping," they said in unison. Draping him with adoring attention, they led their golden guest down the hall.

 

"Goodnight, Clow," he called back drowsily to his master.

 

"Sleep well," the magician called back. He sighed and stretched back on the settee where he lounged. After a bleary moment's thought, he pat his robes until he extricated the pipe case and his own kiseru. He had to get up and stumble over to Yuuko to fill and light the pipe. His smoke twisted out into the air to mingle with hers.

 

He settled into the throne of pillows next to his hostess. He reached for his cup, sipped, and when he settled back again he slipped his arm around Yuuko's shoulders in a companionable manner.

 

She turned her head and looked at him. She took a slow breath of smoke from her pipe, then blew it out even more slowly.

 

“Yuuko,” he said, his breath heavy with liquor and implication. They had been intimate companions, once.

 

“I’m considering the idea,” Yuuko admitted to his unspoken question. She nudged him away with an elbow. Her chin lifted, indicating the settee across from her seat. “Go over there where I can look at you and think,” she said.

 

“If I can get up...”

 

“You can get up,” intoned Yuuko with a more insistent nudge.

 

Clow smiled and obeyed. He walked with great care back to his original seat. By mistake, he left his tobacco pipe behind on Yuuko’s seat. After he sat down, he looked around, wondering drunkenly where it had gone.

 

Yuuko picked up his pipe and smoked the last puff from it. Clow watched her while she tapped out the embers, pressed fresh tobacco into his pipe, and relighted it with the embers of her own. When she paused then, he wondered if – in the manner of geisha – she would take the first puff before passing the pipe to him.

 

Instead, Yuuko leaned forward, holding the pipe along its middle so that Clow could reach forward himself to take it. He did so with a small sense of disappointment. However, his eyes were dark, watching her, as he brought the mouthpiece back up to his lips.

 

“I like to think that you have missed me,” he said after blowing out smoke.

 

“And have you missed me?” she asked lightly.

 

“I thought I was making that clear,” he hinted.

 

Yuuko gave her guest a long look. “Why don’t we switch to the sake you brought me?” she offered. “Too much warm Chinese wine, I think.” She rose. She crossed the room and opened the sliding doors, letting in the pleasant night. Her slow movements and the flush in her cheeks indicated the effects of alcohol. “A lighter atmosphere will be nice. It’s not much of a moon tonight for viewing, but that never stopped me before.” She walked out onto the walkway.

 

Clow started to rise, stumbled on his long robes, and sat down again. They had consumed a tremendous amount of strong wine over the hours. He pulled off his outermost robe and slid off the settee, pushed himself upright, and made his way outside to join his hostess.

 

She opened one of the clay jugs that had been left outside to keep cool and poured for herself and Clow. Tipping her head back to look at the clouded moon, she sipped her rice wine.

 

Clow didn't think that he should do any more drinking, but he could not back down from the challenge to match Yuuko serving for serving. He lifted the shallow cup and let the cool -- but not cold -- liquid flow into his throat.

 

He never could keep up with her fortitude. He knew that the oblivion of drunkenness slid closer with every sip, and he welcomed it.

 

What little moonlight there was shined in the surface of his cup. He gazed into his sake as if scrying, thinking all the while of Yue. Under the lightheadedness from the wine, his heart still weighed heavy. "When we argued," he mumbled at Yuuko, "weren't our grievances plainly spoken? If you told me to go to hell, you didn't pad the sentiment with artifice."

 

"Hm. Your sentiments were rarely straightforward," Yuuko disagreed. "You'd be a devil with a forked tongue, if only you spoke your mind. Instead of smiling," she said.

 

"You knew my thoughts. Without my having to speak them," Clow managed, speech slightly slurred.

 

"No. I didn't," Yuuko answered softly. "I was always the one who sought out your company."

 

Clow's smile looked like a wince of pain before it vanished. He looked at Yuuko with deep seriousness. "Take me somewhere," he insisted, suddenly. "As we used to do. Choose any place, and I will go."

 

Yuuko looked into her own sake dish, considering. "And your companion? Will he follow, too?"

 

"I can't leave him here," Clow countered. Then a thought floated forward in his mind. He rose to make his way inside, though he was unsteady in his step.

 

He wobbled his way through Yuuko's house, finding his way by following the aura of the sun. He found Keroberos sleeping in a comfortable chamber adjacent to the ones where Maru and Moro and the Mokona slept. This is what I should have done with Yue, thought the sorcerer. Then he would be with me, here, too.

 

Clow finished the gesture that sealed Keroberos in the Clow Book. "I am sorry, my friend," he said, his voice hoarse with regret. "I hope that you will forgive me, if you ever remember." He ran his hand over his face. He slipped the Clow Book back into an inner pocket.

 

. . .

 

The pillow under Clow's neck was unusually hard; he discovered why when he saw that it was an empty clay jug. Shuffling noises woke him up further. When he realized that Yuuko made the sounds because she was pulling on her kimono, his disappointment in his lack of memory became painful.

 

She saw that he was awake and threw his pants at him. She went back to tying her obi.

 

The pain in his head was not merely disappointment. His pulse was like thunder in his skull. His mouth tasted like wallpaper paste, and the light in the room was excessively bright and sharp in his eyes. His glasses were missing. He thought that Yuuko looked as pained he felt, but he could not focus clearly on her without his glasses.

 

"Have you seen my spectacles?" he mumbled.

 

She motioned toward the table. He dressed and crawled in the direction indicated. Before pushing his glasses back onto his face, and thus chasing away the softening fog that blurred his surroundings, he poured some tepid liquor into a vessel and swigged. "Drive out wine with wine, to paraphrase Antiphanes," he pledged.

 

"I swore never again," Yuuko vowed in a pained voice.

 

Clow suffered a wounded moment, taking the rejection personally.

 

"That Maotai is from hell," Yuuko proclaimed. "I'm swearing off Chinese wine." She held out her arm with an open hand. "Tomorrow. I'll swear off it tomorrow. Pour me a cup before I die of thirst."

 

Clow complied. He put a cup in her hand and watched her gulp it back. She sank down to the floor, as limp as silk coming off the reel, and lay back completely. "Make the room stop swirling."

 

He studied her body, from the slope of her breasts to her narrow feet. "Did we do anything besides drink last night?"

 

"Sure, we did. You can't remember?"

 

"Sadly, no." The last thing he could almost remember was sitting out under a clouded sky. There had been sake, and there had been Yuuko. "Wakamesake?" he suggested with hope. He could imagine her submerged womanly hair floating like kelp in the rice wine filled valley. With sake always came the possibility of drinking from the crux of her thighs. Pity that he could only remember such an amorous act with her as something from nights long ago passed.

 

"You really don't remember." Her laugh quickly turned into a groan.

 

Making his way to her side, Clow lay out next to her. It did not take long for him to sink into a kind of grayness. It was not the black oblivion that he hoped would spare him from the consequences of consuming excessive quantities of mixed fermentations. Every part of him hurt with its own loud shouting. Nevertheless, Yuuko was nearby and in similar discomfort. Misery with a friend was preferable to misery in solitude.

 

Clow asked, after a while, "Where is everyone?" It had been a long time since he had started a morning without his companions. He could feel Keroberos close at hand. The lack of Yue began as longing and ended as aggravation.

 

"Mokona know when to give me some quiet, believe it or not. Ugh," she added, rolling first onto her side and then making herself stand up. She shuffled out of the room.

 

Before she had gone too far, Clow followed. He followed her into a kitchen area, where she opened a jar of umeboshi and picked out a pickled plum to suck on. She handed one to Clow. He suffered the salty, tart, and sour hangover cure and wished for a drink of water. With no need to read his thoughts, Yuuko poured from a pitcher for each of them. She chewed and swallowed the salt pickled plum before slaking her thirst.

 

"You don't remember dancing around, skyclad, in the garden?" Yuuko asked.

 

"No! Gods, did I do that?" asked Clow weakly.

 

"No," Yuuko replied with a low, teasing laugh. "Not this time." She took pity on him. "We had a conversation," she said, "about old times."

 

Clow made a noise in his throat. "Not something to revisit sober," he exhaled. "Thinking about the past means thinking about the future. About that day to come." He winced. "I still do not know the cause..."

 

Yuuko made a dismissive shake of her head. "What is, is. Would you even tell me if you knew why? I will be trapped in a dream. Time will fold over itself, twice over. Everything that you foresaw, whether we understand it or not. So we made the mokona, you and I. And now, we live, and what happens, happens."

 

The same old argument. They agreed, and yet they argued against each other, at the same time. Clow couldn't stomach it with the thunder in his head, from the after effects of excessive alcohol, and the ache somewhere lower that was a yearning for Yue. Yuuko could have been a substantial distraction. Yet there it was, still: the old argument that could never be resolved between them.

 

"No, Clow," said Yuuko. "You asked to run away with me. That's what we discussed last night."

 

. . .

 

Yue watched the brass hand of the clock sweep the seconds off of the clock's face. Another minute had passed. Enough put together would make an hour; enough hours would make another day. The clock nested crookedly in the quilted cover of Clow's bed. Yue had placed it there where he could look at it without leaving the tumult of piled silk, had rescued it from Clow's empty study. Clow had left his bed unmade, with even his dressing gown tossed upon it. Yue was bundled underneath it all. He couldn't seem to get warm despite the eider down in the quilting.

 

He was cold on his surface, and the ache of missing Clow was a clump of ice in his chest, but under the ice a hard heat pushed. The pillows and sheets smelled like Clow and beeswax and sweat. Yue pressed his face into Clow's pillow and rubbed his cheek against the slightly pebbly texture of the fabric. He was resisting an urge for the panacea of orgasm, but desire prodded him with every breath of scent that he inhaled.

 

His desire was that hot thing inside him, but the heat was not made only of desire. The heat was a stinging anger at being left alone. It was a molten jealousy of it that woman, who was with Clow, who was Clow's peer and maybe even once Clow's paramour. Yue had never known for certain. Who could be... even now...

 

Yue took himself in hand and thrust against a fantasy of his lover. Moaning himself, he imagined Clow's moans. Clow would plead for violence. Yue grasped a pillow under his free hand, the hand that wasn't squeezing and stroking his desire into a hot, liquid jet, and he curled his fingers as he would into Clow's silky hair. Yue pressed his face into the crumpled pillow. Every inhalation was a gasp. Every exhalation was a staccato imperative. He yanked Clow's hair. He bit Clow's jaw. His release came like the snap of a bow string. He stiffened, then relaxed. His sigh was like an arrow going wide of its target.

 

Yue laughed softly and bitterly. He rolled onto his back. A dusting of feathers that were not his own floated down to stick to his face; he had bitten through the pillow. He wiped his hands and trembled quietly and waited for his breathing to slow. He would have to launder the bedding by hand, not magic, because he didn't have the magic to spare for a washing spell. He would lose Clow's scent now. He would be forced out of bed by housekeeping.

 

Not that he hadn't been out of bed since Clow left with Keroberos. The library was his room, and Yue was used to being alone in it. But his bedroom was too lonely, and there was no one to cook for, or to eat for, and no one sleeping in a sunny nook to keep him silent company. Clow's bed was comfort, and torture. Yue kept coming back to it, burrowing into it with nothing but a clock for company.

 

He was lethargic. Clow was too far away; Yue's magic waned more every day. He slept, and waking was like clawing through mud. And when he woke, he reached for Clow, always startled to find the space empty.

 

Yue slid out of the bed, pulling the stained sheets after himself. He didn't feel like dressing, but innate propriety prevented him from going out-of-doors nude. He put on the dressing gown that Clow had discarded in his haste to leave, and wore it tied around his waist. With the sleeves peeled back to leave his upper body bare, he wore the garment through the exhausting process of washing the yards of silk bedding by hand and hanging them behind the house. He washed the cases for the pillows, and the dressing gown, and went indoors to wash himself.

 

When he returned to claim the dried laundry, the wind was picking up, and on it was the scent of more rain.

 

. . .

 

Yuuko pat Morodashi and Marudashi on their heads in an affectionate gesture. She smiled at Clow. "Are you ready?" she asked. The Black Mokona wriggled with excitement, making the bag slung over Yuuko's shoulder shift and slide.

 

Clow patted the White Mokona that perched on his shoulder. His hand brushed against the pocket where he kept the Clow Book and Keroberos sealed within its covers. "After you," he offered, nodding in the direction of the dimensional portal. He followed at her heels after she stepped through.

 

. . .

 

A whip-crack sound followed the decisive opening of Yue's wings. He was moments from the ground. The rain had erupted just before he had passed through the clouds. His timing, perfect, sent him in arrow-sharp flight across the tops of yellowing meadow grass. He pulled out of the dive in a controlled hover and lowered himself smoothly to ground becoming mud. Lighting flashed across the sky, and the rain abated as if the storm inhaled. A second fork of lighting charged the air and made Yue's skin prickle; then the storm clouds exhaled an unrelenting deluge.

 

Yue crouched, panting, in the rain. He pushed the sodden hair that trailed across his face with muddied hands, and tipped his face upward to let the downpour wash his face. His pulse raced.

 

Yue contemplated the heavy, dark grey clouds as they spilled a torrent of rain. A wet storm wind ruffled his wings and pulled at his sodden clothing. He sprang into the air and shot upward through the cumulous layer. The hidden sky beckoned him again, and he flew through the onslaught of the storm to answer.

 

Above the cloud layer, the land was hidden from him, all except the tops of mountains and the distant ocean beyond. The air was cold; the sun was warm. The moon was rising just at the grey world's edge. He felt the power of his wings. He flew upward until even the mountain tops seemed small, and then he tucked his wings in closely and dropped again toward the earth.

 

Nearly a week, and Clow had yet to return. Yue fell in the embrace of gravity, the air grasping at his feathers like questing fingers. Clow was far, far away. Clow was the power that filled his wings in flight, so Yue fell. He fell through the mist of cloud; he passed through the rain; he fell toward the grass and rock below.

 

Then, in defiance, he opened his wings and changed his fall into flight.

 

 

 


	13. Sometime, Somewhere

Moonlight spilled like bridal satin across the tatami mats of Yue’s bedroom floor. Not yet half full, the moon still reflected enough of the hidden sun to fill the house with light. Yue stood with his eyes closed, feeling the light pouring over him the way Keroberos would feel the radiance of the sun.

After the first week, he started sleeping during the daylight hours. It helped with his lethargy and aided the illusion that no time had passed since Clow’s departure. For at least a few hours each night, until the moon passed out of the sky, Yue walked around the house and gardens. Walking in the moonlight was like walking in a dream. Each night, the moon stayed in the sky a little longer, and more of its disc changed from shadowed gray to luminous white.

He left his room, glided down the stairs on silent wings, and passed through the cold kitchen. He stopped only long enough to open the door, but once through he took flight again, moving as a ghostly shape through the dark garden.

Surely, Clow could not stay away forever, Yue considered. Yue was like the silent house, the still garden; he waited for Clow’s return, but that did not mean that he waited unaltered. Just as the vines grew in the garden even in the night, Yue continued without Clow. His heart was a wind driven sea with mounting waves waiting to crash when they again met the shore.

He flew out to the wilder parts of the estate. When he found a stretch of open ground, he landed, found a place to lay out on his back, and looked up at the star filled sky. He could hear small creatures moving in the darkness. For hours, he simply listened to the sounds of the night and looked at the patterns in the sky, not thinking of anything.

Before the dew and damp got to him with the dawn, he returned to the manor. Instead of going directly to sleep, either in his own bed or in Clow’s bed as he had been doing, he looked through the library, hoping there was a book whose content he had enough forgotten for a rereading to distract him. In perusing the contents of one of the tall bookshelves, he dislodged the program for a play, _Lady Windermere’s Fan_ , that he and Clow had attended while in Manhattan, during their stay in New York. The play was by Oscar Wilde and full of smart quips and quotable dialog but thin on story. Keroberos had slept in Clow’s pocket through the whole thing, but Clow had been enchanted by the leading lady, Julia Arthur. Yue, in agreement with several critics, had enjoyed the performance but not the play.

The play was a trivial story about a jealous young wife. The fabricated misunderstandings in the story irritated Yue. He had not yet realized the romantic nature of his feelings toward Clow, or how difficult it could be to give voice to the greatest worry on one’s mind.

He was irritated with himself, now, for the pointless fight with Clow. He could be with him now, if he had simply bowed his head, if he had been submissive and obedient to his master and maker. He wanted Clow to be Master in all things, did he not?

He flipped through the paper program, recalling the pleasant glow of a late night in Clow’s company. They walked home through the city to the hotel in which they resided for their time in New York City. Yue felt useful, protecting Clow from any unsavory element that might accost them on the unfamiliar streets. Clow was potent enough to make any attack laughable, of course, but while Yue was at his side, Clow would never need to defend himself.

What were they to each other, now? Was not Yue still Clow’s Guardian? Why was Yue not at Clow’s side, now?

He knew Clow. Clow could be foolish. Clow could be rash. Yue existed to allow the powerful magician the freedom to be foolish and rash, to be weak, if Clow so desired.

He returned the printed program back between the books, even though that was not the place for it. Yue was not in his correct place, either.

. . .

Clow sat up the rest of the way, watching Yuuko come awake. "I thought, 'open your eyes, Yuuko,' and you woke," he said.

"You think too loudly, Clow." She combed her fingers through her loose hair and looked toward the window of their borrowed room. It would have been borrowed if they had asked permission to occupy it, that is, instead of stumbling through a dimensional door to the closest unoccupied room and collapsing onto the nearest furniture. Yuuko took the chaise lounge. Clow started out in an overstuffed armchair but ended up on the floor. The mokona were still sleeping in the armchair.

 Clow had been traveling with Yuuko for nearly half of a month. In between trips, they typically returned to Yuuko’s home. She didn’t like to spend too long away from Maru and Moro -- or from her closet of dresses.

Their jaunts took them to places across worlds, but most of what Clow saw was the bottom of an empty cup. Whatever time Clow spent sober was a only the transition between episodes of inebriation.  He greeted the pain of recovery as justly earned, but Yuuko would never let him savor the hangovers. She offered him a choice: medicinal cure or hair of the dog.

The biggest disadvantage of his ongoing bender was how adamantly his foresight pounded him with visions when his mind was dulled. He took comfort in glimpses of times where his companions were happy. These were always in the far future, when Yue and Keroberos would serve under a different master than Clow. Those bittersweet visions came less often than harrowing images of war and other horrors.

Yuuko swung up to her feet. She made a beeline to a credenza and opened the small cabinet’s doors. “Aha,” she announced. “He does still keep the good stuff here.”

“‘He’?” Clow inquired with raised eyebrows.

“The owners of this mansion are my close friends.”

Clow persisted. “‘Close’?”

“I have intimate friends besides you, Clow Reed,” Yuuko sighed. She removed a pair of tumblers from the cabinet. She set them down and pulled the stopper from the booze bottle.

"You have lovers?" Clow asked. He lifted his hand, horizontal to the floor, and wobbled it in a side to side gesture of equivocation. "Women and men?"

"I'm not completely equivalent to you," she denied. "And it’s none of your business!" She served two glasses of the clear spirit and carried hers away to the window. “Where do you want to go, next?”

Clow heaved himself to his feet to retrieve the glass of liquor. He stared into the glass while Yuuko stared at him. He would have to play king, someday, for a country that would take his name. He would like to see it unaltered before that time came. With a rehearsed smile, he turned toward her. “There is a desert country I have the intention of visiting at some point…” he began.

. . .

 

Illuminated by the light of candles, Yue stood in front of the dressing mirror in Clow’s room. He positioned the cheval glass to reflect himself from head to foot, then began undressing.

For the express purpose of undressing like this, he wore every aspect of his formal costume. He removed each layer like pulling petals off a flower. First, the winding of his sash dropped to the carpet. The drape over his shoulder, no longer held in place by the sash, he folded and set aside. The enameled chest plate with its large blue gems, alike to Keroberos’s armor, gleamed atop the pile of clothing. He released his cuffs from the jeweled cufflinks. The red gems caught the candlelight and glowed like coals. The rest of his jewelry followed: the cuff earring and the adornment on his feet and hands.

He slid out of the stiff silk of his pale coat. His fingers quickly worked open the frogs of his yellow vest. His undershirt followed. Once his torso was bare, he revealed his hidden wings. He undressed out of his pants and remaining underclothes. It took more time to unwrap his hair than it had taken to strip of all his coverings.

At last he looked at himself, naked, reflected in the silvered glass. The light of the growing moon, shining in through the window, frosted the whiteness of Yue’s skin and hair.

He ran a finger across the bow of his collarbone. He watched the muscles of his arms move. He probed the shape of his ribs, feeling the layer of hard flesh between bone and skin. Following the curve of the last rib, he palpated the taut muscles of his abdomen, then the definition of his hip bone, the connection of muscles at the joint of hip and thigh, and the bands of muscle that made the meat of his leg. Except for the pupils of his eyes, he had all the appearance of being human. Clow had even given him a navel. A thin line of small, soft hair ran from it down to the thicker growth of Yue’s pubic hair.

This was a body that pleased Clow. He looked into his own eyes, again. He was a person that Clow looked at with desire.

Yue stretched body and wings, and every muscle rippled. Here was the person that he kept hidden.

He crouched to pick up his clothing, then changed his mind. He still felt magically weaker than when Clow was near, but with the moon growing to fullness he did not feel as weak as when Clow first left. He crossed the room to the wash basin, filled it part way with water, and set it on the ground where the light would reflect off the water.

Yue reached out to the reflected light with moon magic. He coaxed it out into substance and pulled it close to wrap around him. There was rarely need to use his magic this way. He shaped the light into a second set of clothing, identical to his formal suit but in white and accents of pale blue. It felt like his wings: magic made tangible.

He dismissed the new clothing more quickly than he had created it. He would dress in the clothes that Clow had made for him and go flying under the bright moon, he decided.

 

. . .

"Yuuko!"

The Dimension Witch heard Larg’s earnest tone. She finished tying her obi string as she walked toward his voice.

The mokona yelled again, "I can’t get free!"

Giggling in spite of his struggles, the black mokona called for help with cheerful desperation. Clow gripped the little creature with both arms around its jelly middle. He held on to mokona, pressing his face into its soft shape, the way a small girl would cry into a soft pillow.

Clow was passed out, drunk, on her floor. At least, he appeared to be. His grip on Larg seemed too secure for a sleeper.

She walked over to his form and nudged him with her foot. She wouldn’t say she kicked him awake, though her foot gave him a few hard pushes before he blearily raised his head. Mokona took the opportunity to pop like the cork from a bottle of champagne from Clow’s embrace.

“He feels like the moon…” Clow mumbled.

“Clow,” said Yuuko.

Clow rolled over onto his back. He sighed, a deep and mournful exhalation. Tears welled up in his eyes.

"You're a maudlin drunk. And a grabby one," she complained. She offered him a hand up. He waited several heartbeats before taking it.

Sighing was not something that Yuuko did, but her exhalation was strained. “"You can’t drink like this. This isn’t you.”

“You didn’t stop me. You encouraged it,” Clow said. He drooped where he stood, looking like a neglected houseplant in spite of all the “watering.”

“If you are going to do something or not do something, that is up to you,” said Yuuko without sympathy.

“I bow to your greater wisdom,” answered Clow.

Yuuko studied her house guest. His smile, when he was so clearly unhappy, gave her a chill. “Why don’t you clean up and have a bath, Clow?” She reached her hand out and touched his jawline. “Shave. You will feel better. And then we’ll have some tea and be quiet for a while.”

He nodded with a pained expression. Then mischief sparked in his sidelong glance. “Will you bath with me, Yuuko?”

“Go,” Yuuko said. She gave him a push at the shoulder to start him on his way.

. . .

"Why didn't your Moon Rabbit come with you?" Yuuko asked in a voice as smooth as the sake.

 Clow made no response until her waiting silence made him uneasy. He could hardly start any other conversational thread with her query floating between them.

 He sighed. "We needed some time apart."

 Yuuko's posture straightened. She turned with alert motion. "For what possible reason could your yin companion and you need to be separated?" She stared at him. "Your tone. Do you mean...?" Her incredulity faded the end of her question.

"The boundaries of my relationship with Yue have changed since I saw you last," Clow admitted.

 Yuuko pronounced judgment. "You were never good with boundaries." Her dry laugh subsided. "Tell me truthfully. He was your servant all this time, even before you and I met," she said. "What made the change?"

 Clow turned the now-empty sake dish in his dexterous fingers. Yuuko moved to refill his liquor, but he waved the offer away.  "We fell in love," he said plainly.

 "Oh," breathed Yuuko. Her tone changed to regretful sympathy with her repetition, "Oh, Clow." As she sipped her sake, annoyance took the place of pity. "Don't ask after me again with a clouded purpose. I have my own feelings, old man." She directed to herself, “I should have known. If our hearts ever beat at the same time, they could not be together in the same place. To believe otherwise would be a dream. That’s what we decided.”

 "Ah, Yuuko." He held back saying anything else for a long moment. In the end, he could not stop himself from adding, "You are a woman of the world."

 "I was innocent, before you and I--"

 "You were not innocent," he protested. "You gave your flower to someone else, of your own choosing, before our time together."

 "There are other kinds of innocence."

 "Ones that life strips away in time. For those of us with long lives: less innocence. The price of knowledge."

 "You're being enigmatic."

 "It's not intentional."

"What will you do now?" asked Yuuko. "When you go home. Will you seal him as you did Keroberos?"

 "No! Heavens, no," muttered Clow. He gave her a sidelong look. Then he shut his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His head ached from visions and increasing sobriety. "Though I make a mess of it all, it will be all right in the end, won't it, Yuuko?"

 "You need to go home, Clow."

 “I fear that I can no longer bring them happiness,” Clow said. “What cowardice it was for me to run away. I am torn between decisions.”

“The decision of whether to keep your contract or break it? Whether you keep the contract or break the contract with your creations is up to you.” Yuuko’s tone was unwavering but not unkind.“It is not up to them to hold you to it. No matter what the decision is, you’re the one deciding it. Whatever you decide, decide without regret, because whatever you decide… that’s the end of it.”

. . .


	14. Servant & Master

 

The arrow, notched… the arrow released, fletching singing through the crisp air… a satisfying thunk as its point pierced the target of sticks and braided grass... Yue's body, relaxed and focused. Another arrow to knock out its brother.

The morning sun was warm against his bare arms; the fading grass underfoot sprinkled his bare feet with cold dew when he moved. Though still cold in his core, where an empty space resided, he was warm enough in the autumn morning in loose hakama pants and the sleeveless shirt. The athletics of archery warmed his muscles, though he hardly felt the effort. He had been revisiting his skills since the storm: flight, archery, and the accuracy of his daggers, thrown.

He let another arrow fly the absurd distance to its target. No human man could match what he was doing, pulling the old Viking bow with such ease and sending his missile so far. Nor could an ordinary man focus across that distance and discern the point where the arrowhead pierced the assembly of twigs and cut through the grass ties.

It had been convenient to act as a mortal man, an illusion of manner to match the physical illusion, but Yue was a construct of magic given flesh. He mirrored his Master, but he was not like Clow. While he emptied his quiver, he contemplated the distinction.

Clow and Keroberos had been gone for over two weeks. It took no time to travel through dimensions with the Witch as a guide, which meant that Clow had been in her company for over a fortnight. Yue could not make himself believe that the time was being spent innocently. Perhaps Clow had not intended to bed a former lover when he had responded to her invitation, but Yue wondered if the sorcerer had shown restraint since.

Which was not an excuse for Clow, Yue thought, less than an excuse, in fact. For a moment, Yue despaired. Clow had been Yuuko’s associate for most Yue's life, though the sorcerer had seen little of her in these past decades. She would never be Yue's rival, because that would imply an equivalence of status between them that was impossible.

He loosed the last of his arrows and then flew the long distance to retrieve the ones that had gone before. Only splinters and broken feathers were left of the ones that had hit the target's central point, splitting their predecessors and being split in turn. The broken fletching was made of his own feathers, and Yue took them back into himself.

He could make more arrows, and he could break them again. They weren't sentient; they had no feelings. There was no heart among the splinters. Yue had never created something with its own thoughts, an independent ability to love; he had never created something that depended on him for his existence.

In a hundred years' time, that would change. But picking up the broken bits of his arrows, studying the suitability of the arrowheads for re-use, Yue did not know that. Instead, he thought about the fluctuation of bitterness and gratitude that swung on scales within him, his heart as its fulcrum, and wondered when Clow would return.

...

A light rain had passed through in the afternoon, but the sky was clear again by twilight. Rain still dripped from the tips of leaves, spilling from countless tiny reservoirs, refracting the light of the setting sun into dazzles of spectral color. They sparkled in the garden below while Yue watched from the balcony of Clow's study. If Yue leaned further over the railing, he could see how the rising indigo of night was balanced by the last vestiges of day scurrying under the western horizon.

Dusk, and he was awake. Though he was still diminished in magic, his lethargy given way to acceptance. He listened to the birdsong that echoed reluctant parting with the sun and contemplated the changing colors of the sky. Closing the book in his hands, he held it against his chest and watched the first stars begin to make themselves shown.

A resurgence of magic filled Yue's being, almost making him drop his book over the balcony rail. He chased after the volume, focusing on it so that he could ignore what the nature of his making had just revealed. With the magic flowed a torrent of joy at Clow's return, but behind that golden feeling came another, one that had been sleeping within Yue since the rainstorm.

Yue reigned his emotions in. Clow would be at the manor house soon. Yue took his book back into the study and went to make himself ready.

...

He heard Keroberos first, calling out a merry hello; the front door thudded against the wall with the shockwave of the winged lion's enthusiasm. Yue spread his wings and dropped lightly down the length of the stairs; the stillness in Yue's manner made Keroberos restrain his urge to tackle his counterpart. Yue's face bore an unreadable expression, and his eyes were fixed on Clow. Clow remained close to the door, fussing with the removal of his footwear.

Yue only took his eyes off of Clow when he crouched down to greet his sibling. Putting his arms around the lion's neck, he spoke softly into Keroberos' ear. "I missed you," he murmured. "It's going to get loud, now," he warned, straightening up.

Keroberos cast a look back at Clow. "I think I'll make myself scarce," he said mercilessly. He rubbed against Yue before bounding up the stairs.

"Did you have a good time?" Yue coolly asked. Without waiting for an answer, he walked away, into the rarely-used front sitting room.

Clow followed quietly, removing his overcoat. Once in the room, he tossed the coat over the back of an armchair and shut the door behind him. "I imagine that you have some things to say to me," Clow said, expecting harsh words. He did not expect Yue to walk up to him and slam him into the back of the settee, nor the way that Yue pressed himself up against the sorcerer and covered Clow's mouth with a hard kiss.

Yue bit and pulled on Clow's lip when he moved off to speak. "You owe me a fortnight's worth," Yue growled, his eyes flashing silver. "We will talk after." He derisively pulled off the sorcerer's glasses and tossed them carelessly away before crushing Clow's mouth again with his own. Clow, overwhelmed, yielded. Yue pushed him down to the floor and took him aggressively.

When Yue finished with him, he left Clow wanting, but did not seem to care; he showed the sorcerer an unforeseen streak of cruelty when he rose from the floor and re-dressed while walking away from his still-panting lover. Reeling from unexpected assault and firestorm of desire, Clow began to coax him back to him, but Yue turned on him a look filled with deep hurt.

"Don't," said Yue, "say a word." He walked over to a plush chair and sat down, curling his legs under him. He turned his head away and shut is eyes as if he could not stand to look at his lover.

Clow shrugged his robes back on without attention to neatness. He remained on the floor, sitting with his elbows on his bent knees and looking up at Yue's unequaled beauty. Though Yue's wings made chair-sitting difficult, he had not hidden them. He was making himself deliberately beautiful, and yet untouchable, to his maker; he had chosen to wear his formal robes, and was even wearing the breastplate and jeweled ear-cuff. He was punishing his errant lover, and Clow chuckled at how well Yue could him make him suffer.

Yue, misunderstanding, became upset with Clow's self-directed laughter. "And still, you laugh," the silver-haired man said. "Because I want you and wait for you like a kicked dog." He choked out the last words; his voice shook and his eyes stung with almost-restrained tears.

Clow's rueful smile disappeared immediately. He looked at Yue with wide and sorrowful eyes, and said, "No, Yue." Vehemently, he shook his head. "I'm the one who is crawling back with my tail between my legs. Knowing you might hate me now."

Yue lost control of his tears; he felt the heat of their tracks spill backward and trace his chin. "I don't hate you," whispered Yue.

Clow waited unspeaking for Yue to say something more; when Yue's silence remained unbroken, he ventured a question. "And can you forgive me?" asked Clow with a coloring of hope.

Yue wiped at his tears discreetly. He was angry with himself for shedding them, and angry with his desire to keep them hidden. "Whether I forgive you or not…" he said, and breathed in heavily when he stopped. He looked at Clow again, finally. "You're here, now."

"I swear never to leave you again," said Clow, moving forward onto his knees. Looking up at Yue, a sincere remorse in his eyes, he meant the words when he said them. He began to bow his head, but his chin came back up with Yue's continuing words.

"You were gone so long." His quiet voice was like a blade. "If she is better company than I, why did you come back?"

Clow closed his eyes and exhaled a pained sigh. "Be angry with me only," Clow said with seriousness. “Yuuko and I are tied by fate. It is _hitsuzen._ ”

"Your red string of fate!" Yue snapped, piercing Clow with disbelieving eyes.

"Yue," said the sorcerer with a touch of command and warning that made Yue take in a sharp breath and straighten backward in his chair. Their eyes remained locked for several long breaths. Yue was first to look away, but Clow was first to speak. "You must trust me," he said clearly. “There will come a day when our plans, hers and mine, will preserve true love.”

"Did you promise each other?" Yue asked cynically.

"Foresight," said Clow solemnly.

Shock crossed Yue's countenance. "I don't understand," Yue said questioningly, his voice quiet. Clow gave him no answer. "I don't understand," Yue repeated, more forcefully. "Is she the one... you love?" His breath caught. "Did you lie to me about us?"

The accusation of falsehood made Clow bristle minutely. "I had a vision," he explained in a voice that was hard, "I know her future role will save those who act out of a bond of true love. I know that I will do something that sets these events in motion. I do not know when I will not see her again, but that when I do, I will..." he shook his head as if he could deny the sense of disaster. "I believe that I will make a great error in her future." He looked at Yue. "Greater designs are working in the universes than you or I, Yue. But trust that I have never known a love greater than ours.”

Yue unfolded from the chair and walked behind it and away from the sorcerer. He crossed the room with his arms tightly across his chest and his head down; the loose loops of his hair swung across his face and hid it from Clow. "The future is what you make it," stated Yue tightly.

"The future is inevitable, Yue," contradicted Clow. "Have I been wrong before?"

Yue shook his head, but it wasn't in agreement with Clow's stance. "Debating if you are wrong," he said, "is pointless."

The sorcerer pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and massaged between his brows. "I was wrong," he said, trying to bring the conversation back to his apology. "I was a fool to leave you."

"No," said Yue, "you were right to leave." His words fell softly, lightly, like sakura petals. Clow eyed him uncertainly, confused by Yue's mildness. "It was a good lesson for me," Yue said. A tinge of conceit colored his tone now, and sent a chill through his maker. "I am more than your reflection, Master; I exist without you. Not well," he added in a restrained voice, "and possibly not long," he amended.

"Yue," said Clow with difficulty, remaining on his knees with his hands on them, "do not call me 'Master'."

"You will always be my master and I will always be your servant," Yue said, turning back to look at Clow. There was a sad acceptance in his eyes. "We are not and can never be equals. We have pretended otherwise, but…" he shook his head slowly, "this is a fact of my existence."

"For the love of God, don't say those things," pleaded Clow.

" _You_ are my god," Yue continued relentlessly. "My Creator. The origin of all I am. My breath. My universe is encompassed in you. And I love you," he said, and as his tears came again he let them fall openly, "because of it and in spite of it. If you cast me away I would still be, but what would I be?"

"But you see, Yue," said Clow, his own tears filling his throat and making his words crumble, "you are… to me… my own soul. You are everything that is perfect. You are everything that is good. And I have never loved anyone as I love you." Clow gasped at breaths, and covered his mouth to keep them from sounding like the sobs that they were.

Yue walked close to Clow and kneeled carefully in front of his Master. He put his arms around Clow in a fragile embrace. "We are the joke of a goddess," murmured Yue. "Pygmalion and Galatea."

"But which one which?" Clow whispered back. "I am a different man than who I was before you."

Yue was quiet. His tears had stopped, but Clow's had continued to fall. They were hot, soaking through Yue's coat. He held Clow more tightly. "I won't share you," Yue said, finally. "If we continue to be lovers, there can be no one else." Clow nodded, and Yue stopped him by stroking gently at Clow's hair. "Think before you promise," advised Yue in a soft voice. "Do not take this lightly."

Clow pushed away, and, eyes fixed on Yue, wiped the wetness from his face. He slid backward to put space between them, and then bowed forward fully, hands on the floor, until his forehead touched the raspy wool of the rug. His obeisance was sincere, without a shadow of humor. Yue laughed shortly, and touched his hand to Clow's hair again.

"Get up," he said quietly.

Clow rose to his knees again. He took Yue in his arms, and kissed him, but Yue made himself pull away. "What more do I have to do?" Clow asked with despair.

"You may be my Master," said Yue, and after his next words he stood up fluidly, "but I can still require you to beg." He smiled then, dangerously and sensually, and turned and walked toward the closed door. He opened the door and stood in its archway. "While you were gone, I figured out what the slats in your headboard were for," he added tauntingly. Pulling out one of his hair ties while looking at Clow, he walked out of the room.

For a moment longer, Clow stayed on the floor, stunned. Then he stood on uncertain legs and followed Yue to his own bedroom.

Yue walked a few steps ahead of Clow, a look of contemplation in his narrowed eyes when he turned back to check that the sorcerer was following. He was playing with his hair tie, alternately wrapping it around a wrist - a movement that usually accompanied the backwards look - and pulling at it as if to test its strength. He stopped at the bedroom doorway to let Clow go before him, and closed the door after himself with a quiet click.

"Two weeks," he said ominously. "Do you know what that was like for me?" Clow backed up, stopping when the backs of his legs hit his bed. "When I was in the habit of having you every night," Yue continued. "Two weeks," he repeated.

Clow smiled weakly. Yue pressed up against him and slid his hands down Clow's arms until Yue's fine, strong fingers encircled Clow's wrists. He positioned them behind Clow's body with Clow's thumbs touching.

"This is what you want, isn't it?" Yue whispered sibilantly to Clow as Clow felt the slide of silk against his wrists. The ribbon wove through and around, and Yue pulled it into a tight knot. "Shh," he said, when Clow inhaled to venture a reply. "Don't answer. You aren't allowed to speak yet."

Clow tested his bonds. The knot was serious, the silk without give. He met Yue's eyes, and they were knowing and sly. He wondered if Yue wanted him to struggle… and when his lover had gotten so bold. His breathing was becoming rapid and shallow, and his body stirred with the desire that had been left unsated. Yue brought his lips carefully close to Clow's, and Clow parted his own, letting his yearning breaths escape. He wanted Yue to take his power from him, wanted for once to be stripped of his expected dominance. He was the most powerful mage alive, and he wanted to forget it.

Yue's lips hovered over Clow's mouth; he pulled back with a toss of silver hair when Clow tried to capture them. From Clow's tied wrists, Yue's hand wandered forward and played under the loose layers of the sorcerer's clothing. "Do you want me to take you standing, on your bed, across your bed, or on the floor again?" Yue asked while running his fingertips along the tops of Clow's thighs. His hand came up to cup Clow's chin, and he brought his face close again. "How obedient you are," he murmured to Clow's silence. "Speak. I give you permission."

"Kiss me," Clow begged.

Yue's eyelids drifted nearly closed, but he opened them again with an intense expression. "No commands," he said in a satin voice. He entwined his fingers into Clow's hair and pulled at its fastening. "Ask me nicely."

"Please, Yue," said Clow, easing himself close so that his words brushed over Yue's lips, "give me your kiss."

Yue's fingers tightened in Clow's hair as he granted the request. It was intense and electric, their tongues mingling, trying to make a maximum contact. They drew apart briefly to catch one deep breath before crushing their mouths together again with an unrelenting, possessive force. Yue was the one to finally break away; he rubbed his cheek against Clow's, but Clow caught a glimpse of his eyes, glowing like foxfire, before he hid them. His whisper tickled into the magician's ear a command to move backward.

Having his hands bound behind him made moving onto the bed difficult, but Clow refrained from asking for his release. Nor did he have to ask, because Yue rolled him onto his side and unknotted the ribbon tie. Then, in an almost businesslike way, he re-tied one wrist by itself. He straddled over Clow, contemplatively removing the second ribbon that restrained his long hair, and then, without comment, tied it to the other wrist while Clow watched him.

Clow slithered and brought his arms above his head, moving until his knuckles touched the headboard. He watcheded as Yue, with eyes demurely half-lidded and the thoughtful manner of someone who was arranging flowers in a vase, tied the loose ends of the silk strips through the carved openings in the headboard, weaving a secure knot. It would release easily with the pull of the ribbon's tag end when Yue wanted to set him free.

“Hurt me,” Clow sighed, “I beg you. Punish me for making you weep.” He licked his lips and added, “Please.”

Yue ran his hands languidly down Clow's arms, over the hissing silk of Clow's sleeves, and pushed the garment open to expose his lover's bare chest. With slow and deliberate licks, he caresses the hardening skin of Clow's nipples. He followed his tongue with his teeth, closing them around the prickling skin, biting while he moved his tongue across his capture.

Clow clenched his teeth and groaned.

Yue’s hands were busy with the sorcerer's lower garments. His confident movements stripped everything below the waist with deliberate slowness, but he had to move off from Clow's chest to get the elegant clothing off his lover's legs. With Clow trussed, his shirt and light coat would have to remain on unless Yue cut or ripped the sleeves. Toying with the inner curve of Clow's navel, he entertained the options solemnly before deciding that brutality of such action would overwhelm them both.

He removed his own clothes in a subtle strip-tease. He bared his chest first, and bent down to kiss Clow lightly while he removed his pants. He draped his legs cross-ways over Clow while removing the foot-coverings and the rest of his jewelry, which he carefully placed at the foot of the bed. Hair loose and completely without anything not inherently part of him, he shrugged his wings in a tauntingly come-hither manner.

Clow breathed unevenly and looked up at Yue with a impatient anticipation. His desire was evident, as was Yue's, and Yue coyly rubbed himself against Clow. With care, he caught Clow's eagerness between the palm of his hand and his belly, and stroked.

Clow's erection strained between the warmness of Yue's hand and the softness of Yue's belly. The muscles beneath Yue's rose petal like skin were a firm presence. Wanting to reciprocate the pleasuring touch, Clow pulled against his bonds until the ribbons dug into his skin with a bruising tightness. He closed his eyes against the pain of restraint.

"Clow…" said Yue softly after an eternity. Clow opened his eyes, returning to conscious thought with a gasp. Yue stood upright on his knees and moved up the bed until he bracketed Clow's chest. "Open your mouth," he said, leaning forward slightly.

Clow obeyed eagerly, shivering as the soft skin of Yue's tip ticklishly slipped through his dry lips. Yue filled his mouth. With a self-pleasuring rhythm, the sorcerer's lover pushed himself in and out of Clow's mouth; Clow actively sucked and massaged with his tongue and lips. A hint of Yue's flavor leaked into his mouth and he groaned with willingness for more. It took time, but he got his wish, and a kiss as a reward.

As Yue moved off his body, Clow begged after him. "Don't leave me like this," he pleaded, aching for his own release.

"I won't", Yue promised lovingly. He slid down Clow's body and snuggled between the man's legs with that same winsome and coy manner, positioning himself comfortably on his chest and elbows before descending carefully onto Clow's swollenness. Yue's fellatio was like a long, deep kiss, though Clow arched upward against him, trying bring Yue down more intensely. Yue gently but firmly pushed Clow's legs downward when they tried to wrap over him; he was calm, almost sleepy, in the way that he brought Clow to completion.

He wiped his mouth against the bedsheets before sitting upright and crawling back up the bed with a feline grace. He ran his fingers under the bonds of Clow's wrists, loosening them slightly and applying a healing touch. Then he pulled the knots to the headboard and freed his lover from the light bondage. He lay down beside his quiet paramour.

Clow curled on his side, facing away; the silk hair-ties, still wrapped around his wrist, whispered against his skin and the sheets. Yue's arm came over him, hand resting on Clow's bottom shoulder, in a possessive caress that kept Clow within Yue's borders. "It seems right for you to be master over me," Clow said, brushing his face against his lover's arm.

Yue brought his lips down to the edge of Clow's ear. "It's a game," he murmured, "that lovers play."

"Even still," said Clow. He rolled his shoulder backward until he was enshrouded in Yue: Yue's arms and Yue's hair. He fixed his eyes into Yue's, feeling revealed to Yue's judgment. "This is how I want you to know me. Nothing hidden."

"Laid bare?" asked Yue, breaking the seriousness of the moment. His hand drifted down across Clow's chest and continued until he was teasing again.

Clow hissed between his teeth. "Are you so insatiable?" he gasped.

"Your penance isn't done yet," Yue whispered. His arm moved away from teasing and wrapped around Clow's leg from beneath; he lifted it to open his lover to him and pushed himself into Clow again.

Yue could have given Clow the time to rest, but he was starting to like playing the selfish role, feeling inspired to be the dominant player in this game. His gentleness with his lover was hidden under a guise of insistent lust. He watched Clow's face to be sure that Clow was receiving pleasure from Yue's tight grip and hard thrusts, eased his movement to a softer rhythm when he saw even a hint of a shadow of discomfort. His own body was radioactive with pleasure; his desire felt like it was effervescing in his bloodstream. Clow was the most beautiful thing to ever fill his vision, and he felt that he could not look at his lover enough.

Intellectually, he knew that he should still be angry. Yet being like this now with Clow was what he wanted; they could talk more later, maybe fight more, but he wondered if it was even necessary. What needed to be said, he had said. And there was, Yue thought as he progressed toward climax yet again, such a thing as too much talking.

He shifted their positions so that they could be facing; he wanted to look into his lover's face and have Clow looking into his. He cradled Clow's knees in his hands, trusting most of his weight to the point of contact, and the rest to his spread wings. And he stretched down and kissed Clow again deeply and fiercely as the tremor passed through him, as what was once within him spilled into and hotly filled his lover.

Clow laughed softly as they collapsed together. "Mercy," he chuckled to Yue. "I'm mortal - I can't keep up with you."

Yue was laughing, too. He looked at Clow's sparkling eyes and felt warm and lazy. "I think,” he said, “we finally got it right," he said with a caress to Clow's cheek.

 

...

 


	15. Love Knot

**Love Knot**

 

Yue held the small, new book in one hand and strode slowly while he read aloud. "The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor… And the highwayman came riding… Riding… riding… The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door." He glanced over at his audience.

Clow lounged upon his settee, watching - and possibly listening - with rapt attention. Yue continued, pausing his movement across the floor theatrically at the lines describing the Highwayman's dress, from velvet coat to rapier hilt. Clow grinned broadly then, and leaned his chin into his hand.

"Are you even listening?" Yue admonished. He stared at Clow with a wry half-smile.

"I'm listening," the magician chuckled innocently. "I'm also remembering how good you look in velvet."

Yue cleared his throat and continued reading without comment.

> _"Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,_
> 
> _And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;_
> 
> _He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there_
> 
> _But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,_
> 
> _Bess, the landlord's daughter,_
> 
> _Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair."_

Yue stopped in his tracks. "Oh," he said. He looked up to cast an enigmatic look at Clow. "Just a moment," he said, closing the book and putting it down on a table. Distracted, Yue left the room.

The cabinet in the hallway was still mostly empty, with just a few unimportant items tossed into it and forgotten. Yue quickly located what he had just remembered; the box was layered with dust, but the _washi_ paper had not discolored with age. He opened the origami box, and there it was: dark red, accented with seashell beads, and a hidden strand of his own hair. He carried it back down the hallway to the reading room.

The box was hidden between his hands when he walked toward Clow, who had sat up and was waiting for him with curiosity. Yue bent down so that he face was just higher than the sorcerer's. "One kiss, My bonny sweetheart?" he asked sweetly, and received his prize. He straightened and opened his hands.

Clow lifted the love knot from its box. "You made this?" he asked, smiling with a deep affection that darkened his eyes.

"Can I put it in?" asked Yue shyly. He sank down behind and beside Clow and began to braid the loose cords into Clow's black hair. The knot looked fanciful and old-fashioned to Yue now, making Clow seem exotic, like a gypsy, or a bandit from a romantic poem. Clow's hair was as slick as a tassel, as glossy as black jade; the cord and the beads mingled with it as if it was a jewel itself. Yue did not stop himself from caresses that had nothing to do with braiding.

Clow's hands wandered over Yue's thighs while Yue fixed the ornament in. Seen from the corner of Clow's vision, Yue's face held a dreamy calm; his nimble fingers moved through Clow's hair with familiarity. "Do you know… that that poem ends tragically?" Clow asked in a quiet voice.

"That is not the ending," murmured Yue. His tone was factual; he meant no more than what his words said. "There is more, after he dies." His hands fell from Clow's hair, tickling over the skin of Clow's neck before smoothing over the sorcerer's clothes. He wrapped his arms around his lover without sadness, resting his hands, crossed, over Clow's heart. "Love goes on forever," whispered Yue, confident in his hope. "Though hell should bar the way."

-owari-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 16 is a one-shot added on as omake.


	16. Bliss, of Another Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a one shot that I wrote as a birthday gift circa 2004.

**-Bliss, of Another Kind-**

 

_"You're the fiercest calm I've been in." - Tori Amos_

 

 

"Keroberos is not coming with us?" Clow asked. His enigmatically silent companion strolled a half-step behind on the tree-shaded path. The magician cast his question over his shoulder with teasing eyes that twinkled behind the lenses of his glasses. On his other shoulder, he carried a thick, cotton towel.

 

Yue also carried a towel, against his center, his arms crossed over to hold it in place while he walked. "I asked him not to," replied Yue.

 

"Oh?" The sorcerer's expression broadened with mischief.

 

"Oh," Yue agreed smugly, a sly pull to the corner of his closed-lipped smile.

 

"Hmph," answered Clow, slowing down enough to bring himself in line with Yue. He reached his free arm out and surrounded his winged companion by the waist. For the rest of the way in the dappled sunshine, they walked side-by-side. Their hips slid and bumped together with their imperfectly synchronized steps. Playfully, Clow let his hand wander over Yue's soft wings, and Yue's bound hair, and the flexing muscles of Yue's backside. Yue pretended not to notice.

 

Yue inhaled and exhaled with slow contentment. "How is your birthday so far?" he asked.

 

"It has improved, although it didn't start as I would've hoped," mused Clow. Yue cast him a look of pointed concern. It was met with the sorcerer's teasing gaze. "I woke up alone," he continued.

 

"I was up early to make you breakfast," Yue replied. After a long pause, he added, "But I'm planning on making it up to you."

 

Clow turned, stopping them both. Catching his towel before it fell, he wrapped his other arm around his serene companion in a close embrace. "I'm not good with waiting," he whispered, his warm breath brushing over Yue's lips.

 

Eyes narrowed under lowered lashes, Yue slid his arms out from between their bodies and brought them around in a reflected embrace. He brought his face slightly closer to the sorcerer's face. "You can't always have immediate gratification," he growled sensually.

 

Clow's answer was a low murmur. "What if I just take you here?" he asked.

 

"What if I take you?" responded Yue. He pushed aggressively against the taller man, forcing Clow to step backward. Clow stumbled over a tree root as Yue continued to walk him backward. His back hit the tree behind him. Yue didn't stop until the magician was tightly sandwiched between Yue's lean body and the bark snagging at Clow’s clothes. Yue removed a hand from against Clow's ribs and brought it up to cradle Clow's chin, tipping it downward slightly, and then slowly and very deliberately stretched upward. Clow's lips smiled into the kiss, opening with the contact.

 

Yue abandoned himself to the kiss, his mouth sliding over Clow's mouth, agile tongue questing sensually for response and finding it. Clow returned force with force, his hands pushing against Yue's back beneath Yue's wings. They pushed their bodies together as if trying to meld into one body, eager for union despite obstacles. Towels fell into the loose dirt at the base of the tree. They were followed by Yue's sash and coat, then Clow's first two layers. Yue stepped away to make room to get at the rest of the sorcerer's clothes, and Clow pushed the platinum-haired man to the ground, straddling himself over Yue's partially upright figure.

 

Yue used his wings to reverse the dynamic, and since Clow did not have wings of his own to keep himself standing, pushed Clow flat. He was still between Clow's legs. He pinned the sorcerer by Clow's firm biceps. Wings beat crisply as he descended onto his lover, kissing and nipping from ears to collarbone, and pulling Clow's shirt open with teeth. Clow's lower arms were free enough to cause their own mischief. The busied themselves with the bindings of Yue's pants.

 

Yue blew out a loose thread from between his lips and released Clow's arms long enough to pull his own shirt off over his head. Clow took advantage of the moment to sit up, to press his lips to the delicate skin of Yue's belly, biting gently into the resistant bands of muscle. Yue yelped. He hurriedly cast his shirt away; the gusting breezes tossed it into a nearby shrub. Clow's mouth moved down further while he pushed Yue's coverings out of the way.

 

"Forget what I said about immediate gratification," gasped Yue, reaching deeply to slide his hand down over the bulge that stretched the crotch of Clow's pants. The thin silk could not hide the contours of the desire that reflected Yue's own arousal. As he rubbed, the silk became mildly damp.

 

With a breathy moan, Clow pulled his head away and looked into Yue's face. "As much as I enjoy unwrapping my gift," he stumbled, "maybe you could remember that I'm the one that's supposed to receive."

 

Yue nodded, already moving downward. "You can blow out my candle later," he quipped. He had difficulty concentrating enough to release the fastenings of the sorcerer's pants, his otherwise dexterous fingers unresponsive from the extent of his aroused state. Mildly frustrated, he sucked at Clow through the cloth barrier, Yue's saliva moistening the silk further, conveying the motions of his tongue and lips as if no barrier existed.

 

Clow cursed and roughly pushed Yue's head upward and away so that he could pull open the pants buttons and free himself of his own clothes. He hastily caught Yue's mouth with his own in a short, hard kiss, hands still tangled in the pale hair. When they broke for breath, Yue slid both hands under the hard cheeks of Clow's buttocks, lifting the man at the hips while sliding backward to bring himself down.

 

Yue wrapped his mouth around a rigid cock that stretched his lips and fought for space with his tongue. Clow already tasted of salt, but pleasantly, Yue found, when he devotedly traced the shape and familiar curves of his lover. He slowed down to let himself enjoy Clow's clean, musky scent and the contrast of soft skin over swollen flesh, moving with torturously slow pleasure. The pads of his fingers delved into curling hair, adding to the ministrations of his mouth.

 

Clow whimpered before he climaxed, but, hands still tangled into Yue's hair, he pulled to roughly when he reached completion. Yue pulled away, surprising them both by cursing. He tossed back the fringe and loose loops of his pale hair.

 

"Apologies," sighed Clow, as sheepishly as he could while still reeling with satisfaction.

 

Yue made eye contact and then dropped his head down again. His teeth fixed onto the soft meat of Clow's thigh. He bit until a wine-dark stain rose onto the fair skin.

 

"Yue," Clow complained with a hissed intake of breath. "As much as I would like that in a few minutes, show some mercy."

 

"You weren't meant to like it," Yue said plainly. He smoothed down his offended mantle with both hands before reclining onto Clow's chest. A mercurial smile replaced his look of reprimand. He gently touched his fingertips to Clow's glasses and carefully pulled them off of the sorcerer's face. He slipped them onto his own with one hand while slipping the other hand across the plane of Clow's chest to rest over intimate space. An eyebrow raised behind the spectacles, he noted, "Now you're not wearing anything."

 

Clow smiled in a way that showed teeth. "Here," he said, reaching up to take his lenses back. "Let me finish undressing you." Yue briefly closed his eyes as the glasses were removed. The frames clicked as the glasses folded. Clow tucked them into a protective nook of tree root.

 

"Happy Birthday," purred Yue, quiet and low.

 

"I'm wearing the suit," joked Clow languidly, his voice also too low to have been heard beyond their sphere, had there been anyone around besides the two.

 

"It looks good on you," answered Yue, placing a soft kiss on the corner of his lover's mouth.

 

Clow's lips buzzed softly against Yue's, catching first just the upper lip and then just his lower. The tips of their tongues touched delicately and deliberately. Yue rolled so that he was more firmly on top of Clow, although he did not move his hand, which was beginning to register renewed interest beneath it. He fluttered his wings. Powdery dirt dusted the reclined bodies. Clow refrained from pointing it out.

 

Yue moved his kisses off of Clow's lips and into the nuzzling space of neck and hair. Clow's shining black hair had come loose sometime during the mutual undressing; it spilled around his head like deep shadow. The herbs in Clow's hair soap left a faint cologne that made Yue sigh involuntarily. While Clow began nuzzling kisses of his own, Yue sucked with soft bites, leaving marks on top of other marks that were fading.

 

Their mouths returned to each other with deeper kisses. Clow's tongue darted in, and Yue sucked on it as he had sucked on Clow earlier. They tasted each other as deeply as they could, lost in a bliss of contact that needed only a bridging depth to be complete.

 

"Tell me we don't have to go back to the house," murmured Clow.

 

"No," Yue murmured in return. "It's here somewhere." He parted from Clow in brief forays, digging distractedly through his scattered clothing. Eventually he found what he was looking for, and the scent of beeswax and almond drifted from his warming skin. Already in a somewhat melted state, it lubricated smoothly. As Yue slid into Clow, with his arms crossed lovingly over Clow's chest, the sorcerer inhaled the perfume of his lover's hands.

 

Yue breathed against Clow's ear, inarticulate murmurings of his incomparable pleasure as he pushed against the forces inside of his lover with a steady, fluid rhythm. Clow stretched his neck backward so that they could still kiss, fleetingly. Yue's hand worked at Clow from in front, gently stroking until they were both in the same state of desire, and then he increased the insistence of his thrusts to push them both toward completion. Clow, though in the so-called passive role, was not passive in the least. They grappled in the last stages and, with the certainty of practiced lovers, found their bliss in close and vocal synchronism.

 

They reluctantly disentangled, shivering from the storm of nerve ends singing. They stayed close, even if for the next few moments they couldn't stand to touch. Almost shyly, they met each other's eyes.

 

When Yue sat up, he looked around with heavy-lids, seeing their surroundings and their disheveled state clearly for the first time. "Next time," he sighed with a small smile of contentment that quirked up one corner of his mouth, "we need to find the hot springs first."

 

Clow smirked at the dirt that liberally coated both of their bodies, especially Yue's wings and the lower half of Yue's hair. "Isn't that where we're heading next?" he asked with false innocence.

 

. . . x . . .


End file.
